


nothing gold can stay

by haevyunly, sunshyun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Rich kids, Coming of Age, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Inspired by the Boom MV, Internalized Homophobia, Loss of a family member, M/M, OT7, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2020-09-24 21:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20365060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haevyunly/pseuds/haevyunly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshyun/pseuds/sunshyun
Summary: They were golden kids, that's what everyone always said to them. Golden childhoods, golden futures, anything they could ever ask for. They grew up in a crystal bubble, but no one ever told them that crystal breaks and shards sting.or: the ot7 nct dream coming of age au no one asked for.





	1. the cruelest dream, reality

**Author's Note:**

> everybody say thank you nct dream for giving us the rich kids aesthetic we never knew we needed.
> 
> so, first chapter. as is stated in the summary this is an ot7 fic which means it will revolve around friendship dynamics but, of course, there are also two potential relationships, hopefully we'll manage to balance it all.
> 
> we're working on the fourth chapter right now so we expect to be consistent with the updates. we hope this ride is as exciting for you as it will be for us!!
> 
> (thank you eli, bea (♡˙︶˙♡)~)

i.

♖

Donghyuck is trembling when his phone's ringtone cuts through the silence of the empty car, like a bullet. 

The memory of his father's anger is still reverberating in his brain, sharp as a knife and cutting its way through every tiny bit of his conscience. He can feel it, leaking into him, poisoning his thoughts until all he can see is red red _ red. _

He's always on edge lately. 

He answers the phone without looking who's the one calling, and prays that it's not his mother with more empty promises and weak excuses. But then he hears Jisung's voice through the speaker, loud and desperate.

"Where are you?" 

Donghyuck swallows back the need to correct his younger friend. He wants to say _ hyung, Jisung-ah, it's hyung to you _, but he doesn't. Jisung is a good kid, with just the perfect amount of mischievousness in him, and Donghyuck has a million different reasons to adore him.

That said, there's only one reason why he would call Donghyuck at almost 2am on a Friday night, though. He can hear the faint music coming through his phone.

"I'm at my parent's house." A pause, he sighs. "Is it Jeno again?"

“Listen, I need your help. He weighs like a dead man and I can't get him home on my own. Please.”

Jisung doesn't answer his question but he doesn't need to. Of course it's Jeno. It always is these days. 

"Please don't tell me he's unconscious," Donghyuck says. It's been something in the back of everyone's minds these past few weeks. The fear on Chenle's voice when he told them that Jeno had drank too much and was passed out on the bathroom floor was something none of them were able to shake off yet. Because see, maybe ending up unconscious for drinking more than what your body can take is a common thing for college students, but that was Jeno. Sweet, cheerful, responsible Jeno that had been acting weird for a while now. The mere thought of something being wrong with him was enough to twist their stomachs. 

"No, but almost," Jisung replies and Donghyuck can hear how tired he is. "He fell at one point and never got back up again. Hyung, please come quickly."

-

It's another stupid party at Yukhei's house, of course it is. 

One thing Donghyuck knows about this little and privileged bubble they all live in, is that rumours are for rich people the same as knives are for others. One rumour and your entire image is distorted, changed, for better or for worse. People will either blindlessly love you, hate you, or use you. He's learnt that from a very young age.

Like in this case, Donghyuck barely knows the guy, the _ real _ him, and yet, he might as well do. Because if it's rumours we're talking about, then what hasn't been said yet about Wong Yukhei? 

But some of them are true, he observes, as he makes his way through the large, golden entrance of a tall property. For example, the one that says that Yukhei lives by himself on a penthouse in Apgujeong that costs as much as the yearly university fundings.

Even though the place is big, way too big for just one person, there are now too many people in it, all of them wasted or as close as it gets, dancing along to the rhythm of some new song that's everyday on the radio. Donghyuck's not going to lie: if he hadn't had the meeting with his parents, he would have most definitely been part of the drunk, dancing sea of people in that house. With a little bit of luck, he would have even been pressed against the walls by some cute guy too.

Fuck his parents, really.

"Hyuckie!" Jaemin is a bit tipsy when he approaches him, otherwise he wouldn't address Donghyuck like that. He might have, when they were kids, but not anymore. Things were way too different now. "I didn't know you were coming."

Donghyuck takes a look at his friend. He always thought it was unfair, the way Jaemin looks put together and dainty, no matter what situation he's in. Like right now, he's clearly had something to drink, and he's been dancing too, judging by the way his skin shines a bit and how his hair is tousled. He's wearing a tank top that hungs very low on his body, and Donghyuck's eyes run faintly across some marks on the spot where his shoulders meet his neck. He's not going to say anything about it. Why would he? If he's seen them it's because Jaemin wants him to. Donghyuck's not dumb enough not to know that most of Jaemin's actions are very calculated, especially in moments like this, when he knows he looks effortlessly pretty, like a piece of art.

"That's because I wasn't planning on coming. Where's Jeno?"

Jaemin flinches. Some of his composure wears off for a moment when he hears the dry seriousness in Donghyuck's face and sees the way his eyes radiate fire as he scans the whole room. 

"I- I don't know," he stutters, and then quickly recovers. "I think I saw him near the pool a while ago. Hyuck, what's going on? Did something happen?"

The shimmer in his eyes fades when the answer to his question forms in Donghyuck's gaze, and his slim figure that less than a minute ago stood grand and unreachable, like a young god among a sea of people, now looks smaller, his stance more insecure and shoulders clenched in tension. Because for all the assuredness he exudes, Jaemin's polished image has one weak spot. 

Donghyuck knows this and he can see how it starts crumbling the second he imagines something could have happened to Jeno. He can see as if he was looking through an X ray the way his chest starts feeling heavier and heavier with guilt, the way his mind is filled with nothing but a voice reminding him that he was supposed to look after him. (Always, yes, but especially lately.) So Donghyuck wishes. He wishes he could contain himself, but the reunion with his parents has left a sour taste in his mouth and Jisung's worried voice has ignited every nerve in his body. 

(He wishes he could contain himself because he knows Jaemin will give himself shit for this without his help. He knows all this. But tonight he's a hurricane waiting to happen.)

"Shouldn't you be the one telling me that?" He snaps, and his voice comes out rough, wrapped in embers. "You're his best friend, Jaemin! Shouldn't you be the one calling me instead of Jisung?"

Jaemin doesn't say anything. He doesn't even blink. Donghyuck can't decide if it's because there's nothing else to say, or if it's because there are too many words and feelings hidden inside of his friend. One thing's for sure though, he's not imagining the turmoil of emotions behind Jaemin's eyes.

"Anyway," Donghyuck speaks again, and his voice is lower this time, "you better fucking help."

♖

Wong Yukhei might look like all the rumours that have been said about him are true, there's no denying it. It might be the way he carries himself, all confidence and wide smiles, making people turn their heads to look at him twice.

Jisung doesn't really care about all of that. He cares about facts.

And the fact is that when Jeno had fallen and Jisung had rushed to his side to prevent him from hitting his head too hard, the only person that had stopped to ask if he needed any help had been Wong Yukhei.

"Stay with him, I'll bring some water," he had said, before Jisung had even had the chance to respond _ yes, help me, please. _

He had returned in less than two minutes with two glasses full of water and had stayed with him since. After making Jeno drink one glass sip by sip, he had even helped him carry his friend to his room. Jisung was so grateful he could have cried. He probably did, a little, because he remembers the soft press of the boy's hand on his shoulder and the sound of his voice over the deafening noise of the party going on outside the door telling him that it was okay, that Jeno was fine. 

Truth be told, it was thanks to Yukhei's presence that he had been able to calm down enough to call Donghyuck. 

"Does this happen often?", the boy asks while they are waiting for Donghyuck to come, raising his gaze momentarily to look at him. He's sitting on the bed next to Jeno, holding him on his side in case he vomits. 

"Um, not really, unless we're talking about the last month," Jisung frowns. "He hasn't been well lately."

"Did something happen?"

Jisung doesn't respond. He doesn't have an answer to that. Maybe if he did he could do something, anything. Maybe they wouldn't be here now.

It pains him to see his friend like this. There's something about the contrast between the smiley boy he greeted when he arrived at the party and the body lying still on the bed, being taken care of by this guy he barely knows, that makes him feel sick, that reminds him of things he doesn't want to think about.

"I honestly don't know," he says at last, voice sounding weak when he answers Yukhei's question. And it hurts. It hurts to just blatantly admit that there's something wrong with his friend and he doesn't know what it is. Is it just him? Do the others know? Jaemin at least should, right?

_ Ah. _

_ Wait. _

Didn't Jeno avoid Jaemin since the moment they first arrived to the party?

"Then you should ask him." Yukhei's voice interrupts Jisung's trail of thoughts. "Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that they have to go through certain things by themselves. You should let him know that you will always be there for him, and that you're going to listen to whatever he has to say once he feels ready."

Wong Yukhei is not a cold asshole like most rumours about him say he is. He seems to be rather the opposite, and Jisung silently asks himself why would anyone say something like that about him.

Jisung knows very well that words are dangerous weapons and rich people's favourite choice when they want to ruin something.

(To destroy.)

Jisung's phone rings.

"My friend is here," Jisung tells Yukhei after checking the message Donghyuck just sent him. He types a quick reply.

Yukhei gives him a wide, sweet smile.

"I'm glad."

♖

"They're in Yukhei's bedroom. Let's go." Donghyuck says after putting back down his phone. 

Jaemin nods and follows him. 

Donghyuck says something else, but his words don't reach Jaemin's mind. Nothing does. Not even the lyrics of one of his favourite songs playing in the background. There's only white noise, loud, overwhelming and defying. And maybe a voice, (maybe his own), whispering that this might not have happened if he had just stayed by Jeno's side that night. 

But he didn't.

He didn't because there are some nights when being close to Jeno makes Jaemin's whole body hurt, even when they're lying next to each other on Jeno's bed after watching a bad movie. He didn't because he needs these kind of nights, when he just allows himself to exist outside his reality for a couple of hours. 

Reality hurts.

"Finally," he hears Jisung say when they step into the room.

(And yes, reality hurts. But the scene he encounters when he enters the room hurts ten times worse.)

He suddenly feels dizzy and it's not just for the alcohol. 

That's Jeno. His jeno. And even the fucking host of the party is here with him and he wasn't. 

"What happened?" He hears himself ask, voice trembling. He''s feeling like his body doesn't belong to him, like he's watching somebody else's life displaying in front of him. If he's being honest, he'd prefer that. "Is he okay? Is he-" 

"He''s okay, he's sleeping," Yukhei's voice interrupts him. Jaemin looks in his direction, only a short distance away from Jeno, and his heart stings. He's suddenly mad, with himself mostly. "He will have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, though." 

"Jaemin here will deal with that," he hears Donghyuck say from behind him. He had almost forgotten he was there, but his voice makes the whole scene regain focus. _ Right _, he can deal with himself later. Now they have to get Jeno out of here.

"Okay, so we have to take him to the car", Donghyuck continues. "Jisung, help me getting Jeno on my back."

The room sets into motion. Yukhei gets up from the bed and puts Jeno into a sitting position. He hears Donghyuck and Jisung bickering somewhere around him as they move to take hold of his best friend, ("Hyung, are you sure you're strong enough?" "_Park Jisung._"), and Jaemin is thankful that Yukhei keeps such a dim lighting in his bedroom because the world is moving around him. 

Yet, he says, "No, I'll do it," right after Yukhei offers too. 

Donghyuck turns to look at him and there's that annoyed smirk on his face that he knows so well. He knows his friend will scold him after this but, well, he can't say he doesn't deserve it. 

"Uh, yes no. We're not putting a drunk person on top of another drunk person, thank you."

"I'm not that drunk, Hyuck."

"You're shaking, Jaemin."

They are staring at each other and there are flames in Donghyuck's eyes, and he knows he probably looks pitiful in comparison, clenching his fists, not a shade left from the person he's used to being. But he can't stand being there not doing anything. Not after he left Jeno alone when he had said he wouldn't. 

He doesn't get a chance to protest, though, because Yukhei speaks again and Donghyuck turns his gaze away from him.

"I'll do it guys, seriously, I don't mind."

"Thank you, Yukhei," he hears Jisung say somewhere behind him.

"Huh. Hot, rich, nice and straight," Donghyuck mutters under his breath. "Unfair."

(Jaemin doesn't stop shaking.)

♖

It's a short drive to Jeno and Jaemin's apartment from Yukhei's home, but Donghyuck feels like time has stopped, and every second feels eternal. Every big tall building seems the same, and the city neon lights that he loves are making him feel a bit suffocated right now. He tries to turn on the radio to ease the mood a bit but he gives up by the third time a love song starts playing and he gets pushed from the back by Jaemin.

Jisung, however, hasn't looked up from his phone since he took the seat next to him in the car. He's probably playing some stupid game - or texting Chenle, most likely, telling the other everything that happened tonight.

Which isn't really that much, right? Jeno got drunk, Jisung called him to pick him up, Jaemin was there too and Wong Yukhei is a lovely young man. That's it.

Right?

(It's not).

Lee Donghyuck doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

"So, what's wrong with him?" Donghyuck asks, breaking the silence. He catches Jaemin's eyes through the rear-view mirror and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. Jeno's been acting weird lately, so what happened?"

Because Jaemin should know. Jaemin must know. 

The boy breaks the eye contact and Donghyuck's attention goes back to the road. He's seen enough, though. The worry in Jaemin's eyes, the gentleness of his fingers caressing Jeno's hair, the non-existent space between their bodies.

"I don't know." Jaemin sounds tired.

"Did you two fight?"

"What? no."

"Then?"

Donghyuck notices that Jisung has stopped typing, the exchange of words between his friends having his full attention right now.

"I already told you I don't know what's going on with him."

"But it's-" _ it's impossible that you don't know, _ Donghyuck is going to say. But he gets interrupted.

"Shut the fuck up for once, Donghyuck."

The rest of the way is spent in silence, but Donghyuck can feel it weighing over their shoulders, ticking, just seconds away from exploding with all the words left unsaid.

♖

The day he and Jeno had moved to this apartment had been one of the happiest days in Jaemin's life.

It had been only a few months ago, in one of the hottest days of summer before their third year of college, and they had all gathered to help them with their furniture and have the whole place set. 

Donghyuck had been pretending to work for the most part, flying instead between the different rooms and jokingly picking at the boys and giving silly advice, making them lose focus and delaying the process. 

On one side of the apartment, Jisung along with Jeno had taken care of everything concerning his friend's athletic doings, and they had spent an awful amount of time deciding how Jeno's trophies looked better placed in the glass cabinet they had brought from his parents' house. Meanwhile on the other, Chenle and Renjun had helped him organize all of his books by alphabetical order on a recently bought bookshelf that climbed all the way up to the ceiling. Jaemin had kept a close eye on them even though he knew that Renjun and Chenle were, of all people, the ones who understood the importance of treating such pieces with care. 

When the day had come to an end they had all crashed on the couch, feeling their limbs tired and their chests full with the remains of laughter that still hanged in the air.

What Jaemin remembers is pure noise, pure chatter, pure happiness. 

And Jeno's eyes meeting his across the room.

(He remembers thinking maybe, _ maybe _. Because they were the same people they'd always been, but the fresh air of this new start smelled like hope and possibilities. And god, no one could have convinced him during that precious moment that there were two people in the world who deserved a possibility more than them.)

Thinking about it now, that was probably one of the last days the six of them had had genuine fun together, right before the foundations of their lives had started shaking and making the ground beneath their feet crack and swallow them. 

And even then, Jaemin had never thought those cracks could reach Lee Jeno. 

Lee Jeno, his best friend. Lee Jeno, the guy with the moon for an eye-smile and rays of sunshine for a laugh. Lee Jeno, whom tonight had almost drank himself to unconsciousness for a second time. 

Jaemin can suddenly feel the weight of all the warm memories contained inside this place that screamed _ them _ start to suffocate him.

Because _ how _.

_ How could he have let those rays of sunshine slip through his fingers and leave Jeno like this? _

How could he not notice sooner?

_ How how how. _

"Jaemin."

That voice. It cuts through his thoughts.

Jaemin's heart skips a beat.

It's barely a whisper, the sound a bit rough, but it's so close that he can feel it beneath his skin. It would make him shiver if it weren't for the warmth of Jeno's body where it lies beside him, and all of a sudden he wants to thank his friends for thinking that carrying Jeno to his own bedroom was too much work.

His bedside lamp is a little out of reach from where he's lying on the bed, so he tries to move to turn the light on, but Jeno grabs his arm, stopping every movement.

Jaemin feels like the earth stops moving too. 

He tries to look at Jeno but his eyes can only make his silhouette in the dark, though he can feel his breathing on his shoulder. They've been like this, together, a million times. They got used to sleeping in the same bed when they were five and they had sleepovers constantly. There was simply no reason to stop sharing a bed fifteen years later.

(It kind of hurts now, though. Jeno is always so close that when he remembers his boundaries they somehow feel ten times thicker. Like he'll never be close enough.

Jaemin tries not to think about it).

"Do you need-" he starts, but his voice comes out restrained, dry. It doesn't sound like him. He swallows and tries again, pushing every negative thought to the back of his mind. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful." Jeno replies, voice very low, and he shifts closer to Jaemin, looking for the familiar warmth. "Everything's spinning."

Jaemin combs his fingers through Jeno's hair, getting the strands out of his brow, the gesture soft like a lullaby.

"Let me get you some water." 

It takes Jaemin a couple of attempts to get Jeno to loosen up the grip on his arm, the older boy whining in a way that makes jaemin's heart flutter, refusing to let his friend go. Once freed, Jaemin tiptoes quickly into the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water and a couple of aspirins as fast as he can. 

When he comes back, he turns on the lamp, a perfect dim light painting the room. It's not too bright, Jaemin uses this light to read quietly and comfortably every night, but to Jeno's drunk eyes it's almost as if Jaemin had brought the sun into the room. He turns to lay on his stomach, babbling some nonsense to himself while doing so.

"I'm dying. This is it. I'm going to die" the black haired boy mutters, his voice very small, delicate almost. It makes Jaemin smile a bit, despite everything.

"You'll survive, dummy. I'm taking care of you, aren't I?" he says, taking a seat on his bed by Jeno's side. He shakes the other boy, slightly. "Get up. You need to drink some water, please."

Jeno makes some complaining noises, but he ends up getting in a sitting position just across Jaemin. He lifts his head slowly. Clearly trying not to make any unnecessary movements that would make his headache worse. He grabs the glass of water Jaemin's offering him, and does the same with the white and red pill. 

Somehow it is definitely the most distressing moment of the night —Jeno almost spilling the whole glass of water in the mattress, Jaemin screaming and panicking.

But Jeno is laughing, so Jaemin thinks it's all worth it, and when his eyes meet Jaemin's the older boy smiles, his eyes turning into crescent moons, still glassy and a bit unfocused, the alcohol still affecting his system.

"Hi."

It's in moments like these when Jaemin's mind goes crazy. A single word being repeated like a siren. A single word that encapsulates a whole other reality.

_ Maybe. _

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

("So, what's wrong with him?" Donghyuck asks).

"Hi, Jeno." Jaemin acts without thinking. He closes his eyes, leans closer, and rests his forehead against Jeno's. He can feel the other boy tense up a bit, but his body quickly relaxes after just a couple of seconds. And it's nice, it's real, and it's just them. Like it's always been, like Jaemin thinks it always should be. "Let's sleep, yeah?" 

Jeno nods, making their noses rub so lightly that Jaemin thinks he might have made it up.

♖

When Renjun opens the door to find Donghyuck standing on the other side, hair tousled and eyes glassy from lack of sleep, he knows immediately that something's wrong.

But Donghyuck enters without asking and doesn't say a word, so Renjun doesn't ask either. If there's something he's learnt from being friends with Donghyuck for over fifteen years is that when his friend wants to talk, he'll talk. So he waits, swallowing the sudden bitter taste in his mouth the same way he's used to swallowing his own words and closes the door behind them. 

"Are you here to crash?" 

"No, I'm here to kiss you goodnight. What else does it look like?"

Renjun smiles and some of the tension that had built up in his chest loosens up. "Asshole."

Donghyuck just chuckles. 

Renjun follows him as he makes his way into the kitchen like he just entered his own apartment and opens the fridge. Donghyuck mutters something (Renjun knows he's complaining about the lack of beer) and after some thought he grabs an orange juice box, closing the fridge with his back.

"That's Chenle's." 

"Good thing he loves me then," Donghyuck answers with a smirk, then frowns as if he just realized something. "Where is he by the way?"

"Sleeping, of course. Do you even know what time it is?"

At that Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" he asks, in a thin voice, faking concern with his left hand above his heart. Ever so theatrical.

Renjun knows the answer is visible in both his clothes and the lamp turned on in his desk, shining over the scattered books above it, so he just gives him an unimpressed look and turns around in the direction of his room. Yet, from behind his back, he can hear Donghyuck laughing and the overly sweet voice he always makes because he knows it annoys him. 

"Thought so!"

For a moment it all feels so light and normal that it makes it easy to forget there's a reason why his friend is crashing here, completely sober on a Friday night when he's got an apartment of his own. 

(It also makes it easy to ignore the throbbing pain in his head and the way his eyes are starting to sting. That can wait.) 

When he comes back to the living room carrying two pillows in his arms, Donghyuck is already lying on the couch, his head resting on the crook of his wrists. 

Renjun throws the pillows at him, not hard, but not too soft either. Donghyuck scowls at him.

"I'm your guest, Renjun, treat me with care."

"Aw, no, thanks. Maybe tomorrow, if you buy breakfast." 

"But I need your care now." Donghyuck says, pouting.

Renjun shrugs. It's been over a decade since he was weak for that pout. "I don't make the rules, Hyuck." 

He sees Donghyuck look away from him, muttering under his breath while he places one of the pillows beneath his head and the other to his side. It takes him a few seconds to realize that one is for hugging. 

He thinks about saying something about it, maybe tease him, but in the end he decides against it.

"Well, Hyuck, I'll be at my desk for a little longer. Just tell me if you need anything, or if the light bothers you."

He turns to leave but Donghyuck speaks again.

"Wait, Renjunnie."

The shift in his voice doesn't go unnoticed to Renjun. He looks at him again.

"Jisung told you guys about Jeno, right?"

"Yeah," says Renjun. Chenle had come running out of his room to tell him. He had looked so sad and worried that when he glued himself to his side and rested his head on his shoulder he had let go of his notes and hugged him, ruffling his hair. Of course Chenle would be like that, if one month ago he had been the first one to see Jeno unconscious on the floor. "But he's okay, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he is okay. Or well-" Donghyuck cuts himself. "You know."

Renjun does. _ He's not really okay, _ is what Donghyuck doesn't say. _ But him being safe with us is as much as we can hope for now. _

There's a moment of silence then as Renjun goes to sit on the other end of the sofa. They both are thinking the same thing. 

"But anyway, that's not all", his friend says then.

"Thought so," he replies, quoting what the other had said to him before. Although the atmosphere now feels heavier, strangled. 

Still, Donghyuck gives him a brief smile before continuing.

"My parents called me today. They wanted to have a family reunion." 

Renjun doesn't say anything after that statement. He's well aware of Donghyuck's family situation, and how it's affecting his friend, so he just meets Donghyuck's eyes to encourage him to keep talking.

_Come on, get it off your chest. I listen_, is what his silence says. 

"I just don't get it," Donghyuck carries on. "I don't understand how they're still living together. I know they're not technically divorced yet because they have the fucking trial coming but I swear the only reason they still sleep under the same roof is because they don't want people to be talking about it. As if every person in South Korea doesn't already know that my father cheated!"

And if they didn't know it doesn't matter, they probably know now, because Donghyuck words are loud as they carry within themselves a storm of repressed emotions. See, that's the thing with Donghyuck, Renjun's noticed. His friend is, without a doubt, one of the loudest people he knows. The only exception comes to be when he's feeling sad.

Sadness makes Lee Donghyuck quiet.

Which is why after he's done talking he doesn't say anything else as he finishes Chenle's juice box.

Renjun takes it from Donghyuck's hands when he notices that he's started to play with it. There are many chances of the sofa getting stained and Renjun isn't taking any unnecessary risks.

"Why did they want to see you?" he asks, totally unfazed by Donghyuck's fake pout.

"Something about their lawyers, I think. About giving a statement? I don't know. At some point we were just screaming at each other. Classic Lee family." 

"When is the trial?"

"In two months."

It could be worse, Renjun thinks.

"It'll be over soon then, Hyuck."

"I hope so, cause I feel like I'm going crazy. At least I'm not a minor so they don't have to legally fight over who gets custody." Donghyuck covers his face with his hands, making it look like he's trying to cover his tears. "Imagine my parents making arguments about who should be the poor bastard who should take care of me."

"Poor bastard?" Renjun asks, and looks at his friend.

He swears Donghyuck's silly smirk falters for one second.

"I know that I'm not a good son, alright?"

"Self-pity doesn't suit you."

"Those eye bags don't suit you either, Renjunnie." Donghyuck says as he points at his own face, where he would have eye-bags if only he was as sleep deprived as Renjun.

Oh, but Donghyuck doesn't know that.

Neither do Jeno, Jaemin or Jisung.

Only Chenle is aware of Renjun's sleeping problem, and even so, he's only seen a little piece of the big whole picture. Being his roommate Renjun has lost count of how many times Chenle has caught him finishing some drawing in the middle of the night. 

At this point he's so used to brushing it off and making excuses for it that he could almost fool himself.

(If only it weren't for the constant dull noise in his mind, like a radio out of tune.)

He can see Donghyuck lying on the couch, momentarily lost in his thoughts and with a look on his face as if there is a war bubbling up inside him and taking shape. He thinks of Jeno and how the brightness in his smile has been lost for a while now. 

He thinks of Jisung.

His own friends have it worse, right? He can deal with himself, anyway. He has to. He's learnt how to put up his best show, and Chenle's been easy to deal with so far.

_And speaking of the devil..._

"Hyung, your voice is like, so loud."

_ Look who's talking _Renjun thinks, but smiles anyway. Chenle's half-sleep, his eyes barely a thin line on his puffy face. His hair is swinging in every direction, and as he gets closer to them Renjun can spot some marks the pillow left on his skin.

"Finally, someone in this house that actually likes me." Donghyuck jokes. He walks towards Chenle and hugs him, getting himself wrapped around the younger boy as he lifts an arm and points violently at Renjun. "Can you believe Renjunnie was going to make me sleep on the couch?"

"You're a menace! Last time you slept in my bed you almost pushed me off of it!"

"Chenle can I sleep with you? Pretty please." Donghyuck asks, using that high sulky tone that Renjun hates so much. In fact, he grabs the pillow Donghyuck left on the couch and he throws it at him once again.

Donghyuck dodges it and laughs.

"Of course, hyung." Chenle replies, and he's clearly trying desperately to keep his eyes open. Renjun and Donghyuck notice this, and the latter starts pushing Chenle back to his bedroom.

"Can we close the door? I'm afraid Renjunnie might try to kill me while we sleep." 

"I'm seriously going to murder you someday."

Donghyuck and Chenle's laughs fill the whole house and make Renjun's heart feel lighter. There's a smile on his face, and as he looks at the pile of books he has on his desk he thinks that maybe it's also time for him to go to bed. He's not going to sleep if he doesn't at least try it.

Just when he's about to turn off the light, Donghyuck's voice is heard again.

"Wait, there's something I need to ask" the boy says, resting against Chenle's bedroom door frame. He looks serious, pensive. When neither Renjun nor Chenle say anything, prompting him to speak again, Donghyuck does. "Are we a hundred percent sure that Wong Yukhei is straight?"

Chenle's laugh is deafening.

(It makes Renjun think they're all going to be alright.)


	2. and lighting the fuse might result in a bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy ♡( ◡‿◡ )

ii.

♖

When Jeno opens his eyes, the world around him is spinning. 

There's a sharp pang in his head, as if something is trying to come out of it, and his back hurts the moment he tries to shift into a sitting position. It takes him a few moments and several blinks for the room to stop moving and take shape, and when it does, he realizes it's Jaemin's room.

Suddenly, there's a brief memory of the night before slipping into his brain like a wave hitting shore. 

Warm skin under his touch, eyes on his, a soft voice speaking to him with such care and tenderness one would think the air around them was made of glass.

He had slept in Jaemin's bed. Jaemin had slept beside him. 

There are still many puzzle pieces left, but that's something.

The spot on the bed next to his is empty and cold now, a clear contrast from the warmth he remembers falling asleep to. Jaemin must have woken up a while ago, he thinks, although winter is around the corner and its frozen arms show no mercy when it comes to taking hold of everything within their reach with the speed of lightning. 

Right now, the sun is not even able to penetrate through the thick, black curtains of his friend's room. It somehow makes the place feel even colder. But of course, he knows.

He can clearly picture his roommate pulling the curtains down so the light wouldn't burn his eyelids as soon as he woke up. If he thinks harder, he can even feel the ghost of a kiss on his temple, cotton lips brushing gently on his skin before going out the door.

(_ You'll survive _, Jaemin had said.

_ I’m taking care of you, aren't I? _

And of course he had. He always did.)

The clock on the bedside table reads 8:30am, so he rubs his eyes and decides to get up. As soon as he lifts himself from the bed he feels the ground move beneath his feet, but in a few seconds he recovers. His head still hurts and his body still feels like a truck ran over it, but it could be worse. He could be vomiting, for instance. The thought makes chills run down his spine. 

Every step is a struggle but when he reaches the kitchen, he finds Jaemin on the counter. He can only see his back, but he notices that he's wearing an apron and all of a sudden the smell of pancakes fills his nostrils.

He feels instantly better.

“Stop staring like a creep, Jeno."

"What the," Jeno begins as he makes his way towards Jaemin. He walks slowly and with one hand always close to the wall or the kitchen furniture, just in case the world starts spinning again.

"You're not even looking at me, how do you-" 

Jaemin doesn't let him finish.

"I'm wearing a cute apron," Jeno's eyes travel over his friend's body. Jaemin is, indeed, wearing a white apron with little heart-shaped dots that Jeno has no idea where it came from. "_ and _ I'm making you breakfast. Of course you're looking at me."

He's right. Jeno _ is _ looking at him (when is he not?), his eyes lingering against his will at certain details, like they've been doing lately. Under the apron, Jaemin is wearing an oversized pink shirt that ends half-way through his thighs, leaving only a tiny bit of his black underwear in sight.

The hangover might be kicking in again because Jeno feels dizzy all of a sudden. He chooses not to reply to Jaemin's statement and instead he gets closer to the other boy, finally seeing what he's cooking.

"Are those pancakes?"

Jaemin nods, very proud of himself.

"Enjoy it, cause this isn't happening again."

There's a layer of pure cheerfulness in Jaemin's voice, and Jeno's smile grows wider because he loves it.

"I bet it will," he replies.

"How so?"

"With you, all I have to say is pretty please."

The reaction is immediate. Jaemin's jaw drops and Jeno starts laughing, not even a bit of shame on him. He lets Jaemin slap his left shoulder (it doesn't even sting. The perks of being a boxer), eyes fixed on him the whole time, enjoying the show of a variety of emotions crossing Jaemin's features. 

"Jeno!"

And Jeno keeps laughing, loud, joyful, and carefree. Jaemin's only option at this point is to join him, which he does, resting his head on Jeno's shoulder, a gesture both of them are so familiar with that they don't even notice how close they are.

"I'll kill you... with this spatula." Jaemin says between pants, trying to catch his breath.

"You sound like Renjunnie." Jeno chuckles once more.

In the end, a couple of pancakes get a bit burned. But it doesn't matter. Not in the slightest.

\- 

"I feel like I've been hit by a train." Jeno says moments later, when they’re done with breakfast.

Their kitchen is still a mess but Jaemin has no intentions of doing anything about it. In fact he takes off the apron and he lets himself down on the couch, right beside Jeno. 

Half on top of Jeno to be more precise.

It's such a relief after last night to spend some time like this.

"That's what you call a hungover, my friend." 

"God..." he hears Jeno groan and sigh near his ear. His breath is hot where it meets his skin. "I wouldn't recommend, not at all."

Jaemin chuckles, although on the inside he can't help but wish it was true. That Jeno wouldn't do that again. 

"Oh, by the way," his friend continues, and Jaemin turns his head a bit to look at him. His brow is furrowed in confusion and his gaze is fixed somewhere above him, as if he's remembering something. "Did we see Donghyuck last night or did I have a weird dream?" 

"If Donghyuck's in it it's not a dream, it's a nightmare." 

Jeno smiles and smacks him on the thigh, softly. Jaemin fakes pain and scowls at him, but Jeno's hand stays there, resting on Jaemin's thigh. He starts drawing circles on it with his thumb and suddenly Jaemin has to close his eyes and swallow to remember what he was about to say. "But yes, he and Jisung were your guardian angels last night. Or well," he stops to think, "Jisung was. But Hyuck has a license so."

truth be told, jaemin is starting to feel a little weary. Last night is dangerous territory and he doesn't really want to talk about it, but then again, there's not a "danger" sign in the world that he wouldn't cross for jeno, and after all this is a conversation they need to have. 

There's a peaceful silence for a moment. Like the calm before the storm.

"To be honest, I barely remember anything," Jeno says then. "Like, I remember talking with Jisung by the pool after you disappeared, and then I think I also said hi to some guys from my class, but after that it's all really-" he pauses mid-sentence. "Wait."

Jaemin can feel the weight of his stare on him, so he opens his eyes just in time to meet Jeno's as he starts speaking again. "Yeah. I think I saw you dancing with some guy too."

Jaemin isn't sure if he imagines the way Jeno's gaze darkens when he says that. He subconsciously brings one of his hands to his neck, where he knows there must be some proof of what he was doing before he spotted Donghyuck through the crowded room. Since Jaemin didn't drink that much, his memories are not quite as blurry as Jeno's, and he definitely can feel the ghost of a pair of lips against his jawline.

Jeno witnessing that scene isn't exactly ideal, but it also shouldn't affect Jaemin this much.

“Yeah, well,” he tilts his head a bit, feeling suddenly too self-conscious about how he’s sitting half-way on Jeno’s lap. So what if Jeno saw him kissing another guy? It shouldn’t matter. “That happened.” Jaemin says as he draws away from Jeno. They’re still sitting very close but at least now Jaemin doesn’t feel like his body is going to burst into flames.

“That happened, _ again _.” Jeno repeats, and Jaemin hates how he seems moodier than a couple of minutes ago. He hates how his tone is somehow accusatory, because honestly? Yes, he’s been making out with different guys in the last months, but Jeno should be the last one complaining about anything, considering how he ends up every time they go to a party lately.

And Jaemin’s been meaning to ask why. Where did the necessity of getting wasted come from? It’s not like it’s Jeno's first encounter with alcohol. They’ve all been drinking long before they were legally allowed to, so Jeno knows his limit. He knows it very well and yet he doesn’t stop once he knows he’s reached it.

_ Why are you drinking so much lately? Did something happen? Are you okay? _ there are a million different ways of wording what he wants to say in a nicer way, but then Jeno had implied that he wasn’t very fond of what Jaemin did in his own free time accompanied by strangers.

The comment is enough to light up a flame.

“At least I’m having fun without putting my health at risk, which can’t be said about you. And I honestly don’t get it, Jeno. I don’t fucking understand. This isn’t like you, you know exactly where to stop, but you’re only accelerating these days. I can't keep up."

“Nana-”

“Don’t. Just, not right now, Jeno, please. There is something going on with you, I know it, everyone knows it. So just tell me, you know I only want to help you.”

After Jaemin is done speaking, silence takes over.

He doesn’t remember when was the last time that the lack of words was a problem between them, just like he can’t remember either of a time when Jeno had kept something from him. These are a first for them, and Jaemin starts wondering when did things start to change, if it was during a cold summer night or if it had something to do with the winter breeze.

“Nana” Jeno tries again, his voice lower this time, and also weaker. Like he’s afraid.

_ What are you afraid of, Lee Jeno? _ Jaemin wants to ask. He lifts his head and his eyes meet Jeno’s. He looks absolutely small, so terrified, so overwhelmed. So _ not _ like Jeno that it makes Jaemin even more mad.

“What is it? Tell me.” He pushes one more time.

Nothing would have prepared Jaemin for Jeno’s next words.

“I think… I think I like boys.”

♖

It's the gnawing pain on his ribcage what wakes Chenle up. 

He doesn't need to wonder what's causing it, though, because he can feel Donghyuck's arms around him, squeezing him with the same force he would use to hug a life vest, pressing his wrist exactly against the bruises on his torso. He really hadn't thought about the consequences of sleeping with the clingiest human on earth last night when he offered, but now as he tries to shift positions only to be stopped by the boy's tight hold on him he kind of wishes he could rethink his life choices. 

"Hyung," he complains.

Donghyuck stays impassible. 

"Hyung!" he tries again, his voice a little louder. "Come on, move!"

But it's no use. His friend doesn't relent even in the slightest.

In the end he has to disentangle himself from the embrace without any help, and when he succeeds and picks up his phone from the bedside table, he sees that it's 9am and he already has three messages from his mother. They all say the same thing, although with different levels of insistence. 

Piano practice at his parents' house in 2 hours.

His fingers twitch over the phone screen, and his whole body deflates, already feeling tired. 

Chenle has to admit that he got a little bit scared the first time that he genuinely thought that he hated playing the piano. He remembers that it was a winter morning, and that he had been practicing since the moment the sun rose up. A few hours later he had drawn the curtains and opened the window, eyes widening as he took in the bright, white layer that covered the entire garden.

The feeling of hatred towards the piano had crossed his mind as fast as a snowflake free falling.

After that it had happened again, and again, and again, on different occasions, different times, until the feeling became familiar enough for Chenle to just ignore it even though it's always lingering, always there, and it covers him whole.

(Like the snow layer over the pricked roses).

Chenle writes a quick text to his mother, and then drops the phone off back again on the bedside table. He steals one last glance at Donghyuck, who's still sleeping soundly, before coming out of his bedroom. The fact that Renjun is already in the living room doesn't really surprise him.

"Did you not sleep again?" 

Renjun jerks, and Chenle thinks his friend probably wasn't expecting another voice in the house at those early hours. He looks at Chenle from where he's half-sitting half-lying on the couch, frowning when he finally takes in Chenle's words.

"No. I woke up like, ten minutes ago. Dealing with Donghyuck last night made me so tired I was fast asleep almost right after you guys."

Chenle can sense that there's more to it than his friend lets on. He can see it in the way his shoulders stiffen for a brief moment and the thin layer of strain that underlies his tone. But he knows Renjun likes to believe he doesn't notice, so he just nods and walks up to him, putting his hands on his shoulders from behind the couch. 

"Should we go wake him up?"

(After all, Renjun wouldn't be the only person in this apartment that's keeping a secret.)

Renjun turns his head to look at him. 

"He will hate us."

A wicked smile paints his friend's features as the words leave his mouth and Chenle returns it, twice as big. There's a silent agreement passing on between them for a second and then Renjun is getting up from the couch and sprinting towards where his friend is sleeping, Chenle following close behind. 

They storm through his door in a fit of laughter, launching themselves over the boy who's still sound asleep, now fiercely attached to one of the pillows in lack of a human sack of warmth. 

Of course, he wakes up whining and kicking.

"Go away," he mutters, eyes still closed and voice muffled against the pillow. He's moving as much as he can without changing his position in hopes of throwing them off the bed. 

"Come on, hyung, get up~" Chenle singsongs in his ear.

He gets up on his knees above him and starts tickling him on the nape, right where he knows Donghyuck can't stand it. Meanwhile Renjun has stood up and Chenle can hear his laughter, watching from the side as Donghyuck opens his eyes and starts arching his body uncontrollably, panting and demanding (more like _ begging _, Chenle would say) him to stop, until he can't take it any longer. 

"Okay, okay, I get it! I'm awake!" 

Chenle stops and watches as Donghyuck falls on his back, chest heaving as he tries to recover his breath. 

"I'm awake," he repeats, "you bastards."

Satisfaction fills Chenle's chest as he stands up. When he pronounces his next words, him and Renjun are surrounding the bed from both sides, devilish smiles on their faces like a pair of predators observing their prey. 

"Treat us to breakfast."

Donghyuck can't say no.

♖

It's after they've spent two hours rotating through the different gym equipments that Jisung can't stand it anymore and asks.

“Are you mad at me?”

Jeno lets the weights he was lifting fall into the floor. Jisung hears someone in the background complaining because of it, but his mind doesn’t catch any of the words that are being thrown in the air. His mind is fixed on reading Jeno’s reaction, every little sign that would help him understand.

“No?” Jeno looks genuinely surprised. “No I'm not mad at you. Why would you think that?”

“I know you’re the one who called me, but you’ve been quiet since we arrived. I asked you a couple of things and you didn’t answer. You didn’t help me with the exercises either. Is it because of last night?”

“I’m not mad at you” Jeno repeats, but Jisung saw how his body tensed up a bit when he mentioned last night. He follows his friend with his eyes as Jeno gets up and walks towards him, taking a seat right beside him. “You helped me last night Jisung-ah, Jaemin told me, so if anything I should be grateful to you. I’m sorry if I’ve been ignoring you, it wasn’t on purpose I swear. My mind it’s just… all over the place a bit.”

“Okay hyung.” 

It’s not okay. Jisung has a lot of questions. He’s had them for a while now, but he doesn’t want Jeno to feel like he’s pushing, because he’s learnt the hard way that people break very easily. 

And yet.

“I’m just worried because I don’t know what’s going on with you. I don’t know what’s happening to the others, too.” The words are out of Jisung’s mouth before he can stop them.

Jeno's brow furrows at his words. "The others?" 

"Yeah, you know," he tears his gaze away from him and starts playing with a loose strand on his shirt. The talk is making him a bit uncomfortable now, even though he started it. "Donghyuck hyung is always a bit angry now, and I know there's this thing going on with his parents but still..." 

Jisung doesn't say how he looks at Donghyuck and sees in his eyes traces of the same feral intensity that has been staring at him in his sleep almost every night for the past few months. He doesn't say how he's scared Donghyuck feels lost, or worse, like he's got nothing to lose. 

"Then there's Renjun," he continues. "Chenle says he barely sleeps anymore, and I honestly think Chenle's weird too, but I have no clue why. And also Jaemin..."

"What about Jaemin?" Jeno interrupts him. His voice is charged with both confusion and curiosity. Jisung wishes he was able to bite his tongue sometimes.

"I don't know, it's just-" he's intently fixing his gaze on the strand now. A little more and it would probably break from the tension. "He's been with so many people lately it's starting to feel... A little frantic.” _ Like he's running away from something _, he doesn’t say. “And he doesn’t seem happy.”

Jisung's voice ends up in a faint trail, and he doesn't lift his head up to look at Jeno. There are all ideas that had been dancing in his mind for quite some time, but he had never voiced them out until now. He's afraid he's exaggerating things, or making them up even.

The next second Jeno's hand is warm on his shoulder, giving him a gentle massage.

"I'm sorry we made you feel like this, Jisung-ah. We're the hyungs so you shouldn't be worrying about us." He moves closer, his chin almost resting on top of Jisung's head. "You're right, there's... Something going on with me. I... I don't feel ready to talk about it yet, but I promise you I'm trying to fix it. And I'm really sorry about last night."

"Stop apologizing, hyung."

"But I feel like I should!" There's a small chuckle coming from Jeno, and Jisung can feel a little smile forming on his own lips. "About the others, Donghyuck is always grumpy when things don't go his way, you know him. Renjun said something about an art exposition last month, right? I'm sure he's not the only art major sacrificing sleep these days. And to be honest Chenle seems fine to me, but if you want we can keep an eye on him?"

Jisung nods, although he's not finished.

"And Jaemin hyung?"

Jeno's hand on Jisung's shoulder stills.

"Jaemin's fine, don't worry about him." Jeno says, his voice sounding nothing like its own.

Jisung wishes he could believe every word.  
  


♖

Jeno's words keep ringing in Jaemin's mind long after their conversation is over. 

_ I think i like boys. _

He's been disintegrating that same phrase over and over in his mind for hours. 

_ I think I like boys. _

_ I like boys. _

_ Boys. _

Jeno left short after dropping the bomb, and Jaemin knows it was his fault. He didn't react properly, he couldn't. He should have smiled and maybe give him a hug, like Jeno and Donghyuck did when he told them the same thing back when they were barely eleven. Well, it wasn't the exact same thing, because Jaemin didn't include the "I think” part, he was fairly sure of his statement.

A similar thing happened with Donghyuck a few years later, and Jaemin remembers vividly how Jeno had tackled his friend in a grip so tight that Donghyuck had started screaming.

Maybe Jeno had wanted Jaemin to just hug him. 

(Jaemin can’t think of something scarier right now.)

This changes a lot of things. Jaemin’s _ maybe _ is no longer a product of his imagination, a tiny thread of hope that he refused to hand over to reality. Jaemin’s _ maybe _ is now a whole possibility in front of him.

It’s too overwhelming.

_ Yeah, I can’t do this. _

Jaemin grabs his phone and he quickly finds the number he needs. He presses call and turns the speaker mode on. 

Donghyuck’s voice fills the room just a couple of seconds later.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“From 1 to 10 how much do you feel like getting wasted tonight?” Jaemin asks, not wasting time. He’s still a bit tired from the night before but spending the whole day on his bed recreating the morning conversation with Jeno in his mind sounds even less healthier than just going out and drinking until he forgets about it.

“Uh, like 15?”

“Okay, and are you free?”

“Yeah, I'm at Renjun and Chenle's, but Renjun is working on some project or something and Chenle's not here,” _ piano practice, _ Jaemin thinks to himself. He doesn’t remember the last time that he saw Chenle in a place different than his apartment or the university campus. “So I'll probably die from boredom within the next ten minutes," Donghyuck finishes.

There’s suddenly a faint voice in the background, and Jaemin can’t hold back a laugh when he understands that it’s Renjun screaming _ save me, please. _

“Great! meet me at 10 at Neo City. We're gonna drink _ a lot _, my friend, so don't bring your car.”

“Okay, sure, but hey, are you alright? Where's Jeno?”

“10pm, Hyuck!”

♖

The music is always too loud in Neo City, but Donghyuck has learnt with time to like it that way. He remembers thinking that the place looked shady when he first took a step in three years ago, the lights too dim, the air too thick, and the people dancing too close; he hadn't understood that the charm of these kind of places lied exactly in those details. After all, Jaemin, Jeno, Renjun and him shouldn't even have been granted access to the club at the time, all of them being seventeen and therefore not legal, but as always, as they grew up learning, money can buy a lot of things.

He understands that charm now. 

Even more so, he craves it. 

Loud music calls for letting go until your thoughts are drowned by the noise, and the heat of a mass of bodies moving along to the same beat has the power to melt your worries into a thin layer of sweat, glowing under the flashes of red light that hit the parts of skin that are not covered by clothes. Donghyuck loves that feeling. He loves these kind of places, and neo city might be his favorite of them all. They had tried other clubs after the first time there, and even more when they had all turned eighteen, but Neo City and its neon red lights and dark corners had kept calling for them, drawing them in like a magnet of monstrous proportions, until it just became natural for them to be there. 

Donghyuck recalls Renjun having his first kiss with some random girl on the dance floor, the date imprinted in his mind because that night he also got to have his share of fun in one of the bathroom stalls.

(That night he remembers sensing for the first time the sweet smell of ruin floating in the air —perhaps embellished by marble counters, expensive drinks and a large window overlooking the tiny dots of city lights, but ruin nonetheless.

Donghyuck had fallen in love with it.) 

There had been some memorable nights at Neo City, sure, but Jaemin telling him in the middle of the dance floor, yelling at his ear, drink in hand, that Jeno had confessed that morning that he wasn't as straight as they all thought he was might take the prize. 

He had almost dropped his own drink.

"I'm starting to believe being gay is contagious." Donghyuck says after Jaemin's done rambling. They are sitting at one of the leather sofas near the bar now, Donghyuck having dragged his friend there as soon as his brain had processed the other's words so he could listen to the whole story properly. The music isn't as loud there, but he still makes sure to speak in a volume high enough so that his voice can be heard clearly.

"Fuck, Hyuck, can you take something seriously for once?" Jaemin combs his fingers through his hair, clearly exasperated. The motion brings the attention of a couple of guys by the bar, Donghyuck notices. "And I don't think he's gay, if anything he's bisexual."

"See, that is something you should have talked about with him this morning. I still can't believe you asked him if he was joking."

Jaemin visibly flinches. He had told him that after Jeno said he liked boys he had frozen for a few seconds too long, and then had blurted out the first stupid thing that had come to his mind. It's been more ten hours since that talk with Jeno, and half an hour since he had told Donghyuck, and yet he doesn't look one bit less mortified. This is one of the times Donghyuck wishes he knew how to be more comforting. 

"Well, I-" Jaemin stutters, gesturing with his hands. It's a bit shocking for Donghyuck, seeing him like this. These past few days he has seen him act more helpless than in the whole fifteen years they've been friends. "We've grown up together and this totally came out of nowhere!"

And the thing is —it did, but at the same time, it didn't, and that's something Donghyuck thinks Jaemin knows deep down too. When he passed out from drinking last month, or yesterday night, those were just two bright red signs. Something had been going on with Jeno since the summer ended, they all thought about it, but none of them dared to say anything out loud. 

_ How many other signs about this did we miss? _ Donghyuck thinks. 

_ Am I a good friend? _

"Actually, most people figure their sexualities out during college." Donghyuck says after a while, when the loud music succeeds in drowning some not so bright thoughts. "Half my class started as basic straight people and now they're all like, gay."

Jaemin rolls his eyes so hard.

"You're a drama major, Donghyuck." 

"Ouch! Is that what this is about? Dumb clichés?”

"I’m just saying," Jaemin says, letting out a sigh. "This is Jeno. Lee Jeno. I can't imagine him sucking face with another dude."

"That's homophobic."

"Stop it!"

Now it's Donghyuck's turn to sigh. Even though most of the time he would rather keep them to himself, he's not really the type to shy away from giving harsh truths. So if that's what Jaemin wants from him, then so be it.

He takes a sip of his drink before speaking. 

"Listen," he starts. "If you want me to be honest, I can't imagine it either. Not with a random dude at least. But that's not the problem." 

Jaemin is staring at him intently, taking in his words with so much earnest that Donghyuck feels propelled to go on.

"The problem is that even though you already know that you reacted badly, you're here with me getting drunk instead of waiting for him to go home to apologize."

When he finishes, Jaemin fixes his gaze on the floor, looking pensive as he lets that last part sink in. Donghyuck knows he hasn't said anything that his friend wasn't already aware of somewhere in his mind, but he also knows that he needed to hear it regardless, so he doesn't say anything else and lets the boy mull over the words alone.

After a few moments, Jaemin finally speaks again, and his voice sounds like a very prolonged sigh. Donghyuck has to lean closer to him in order to hear it properly over the music.

"I just don't know why this is so frustrating."

At that Donghyuck laughs, the sound cutting through the sudden wistful atmosphere. Jaemin looks up at him again. 

"Oh, that I know." Donghyuck says. "See, the only thing that's bothering you about Jeno liking cock now is that you wish he'd only liked yours."

That was probably not what Jaemin was expecting him to say because his jaw drops and he just stays there, staring at him in disbelief.

"You're not even denying it!" Donghyuck teases, bringing his hand that's not holding the drink to his mouth, faking surprise.

Jaemin takes another second of staring before closing his mouth and letting a brief, amused smile form at the corners of his lips. 

"That's because it's... disgustingly accurate," he says then, the look on his face a mix of amusement, fluster and horror. "I really hate you, you know?"

"You like me too much."

"No but for real, Hyuck, what do I do now? It was one thing being in love with my straight best friend but _ this _?"

_ And what is this, exactly? _ Donghyuck wants to ask. 

He’s not really surprised by Jaemin’s words. Partly because the alcohol is numbing his mind and partly because he grew up with them, side by side with Jaemin and Jeno, and Jaemin confessing that he’s in love with his best friend is probably the only thing that has made any sense in the last couple of months. 

_ What is this? What is it like being in love? _

Memory flashes flood Donghyuck’s mind. 

(Of summer, right before starting college. Of soft hands, long walks at the beach, fireworks, damp sheets. Of kissing in dark streets, kissing under the moonlight. A lot of firsts, a lot of lasts −and he had liked the guy, he really, _ really _ did.

He just wasn’t in love, and when the summer had ended and they had watched the sun set for the last time against the troubled sea, Donghyuck’s feelings had settled under water too.)

_ What is it like to love someone so much that it hurts? _

_ Is it possible for everyone? Can I do that too? _

_ I want it. And I want it to hurt. _

Donghyuck empties what’s left in his glass in one shot. It burns his throat (and also the annoying voice in his mind). He looks at Jaemin, who’s still waiting for the answer to the question he made. He doesn’t have the right one, nevertheless he offers what he can.

"Is his family still super homophobic?"

At that Jaemin lets out a chuckle, and it’s so bitter Donghyuck can almost taste it.

"You mean like the majority of South Korea's population? Yes."

"Then you've said it. He's your best friend, feelings aside, you have to support him. Especially when his family doesn't."

Donghyuck thinks about his own parents. Technically, he’s never told them that he’s gay. They know it, of course, Donghyuck’s never been subtle about it, but they never talked explicitly about the subject, nor in a good or a bad way. After getting caught by his mother kissing a boy in their front yard she had only told him not to do anything to embarrass their family. 

And Donghyuck had really tried his best.

That is, until recently.

“Hey,” Jaemin’s voice snaps him out of it, back to Neo City, back to the dim lights and the loud music. He looks back at his friend, and the Jaemin that he finds now is not the same that he was looking at ten minutes ago. He seems put together, the glow in his eyes brighter, natural, daring even. _ So him _. There’s a smile, a real one, plastered on his face for the first time tonight. “Thank you.”

“If you really want to show me your gratitude, please do it on the dance floor.”

His friend laughs.

“You’re impossible, Lee Donghyuck.” Jaemin says, but he finishes his glass and grabs Donghyuck’s hand. He squeezes it hard a couple of times, and Donghyuck knows the gesture is full of gratitude words that need to remain unsaid in that moment. It warms up Donghyuck’s heart, making him feel lighter. “Let’s dance then.”

-

Low bass, hard drums.

_ The lights too dim, the air too thick, and the people dancing too close. _

He has his eyes closed, but Donghyuck can feel the red lights dancing over his eyelids, the faint touch of Jaemin's hand on his hips.

Donghyuck just lets the music fill his mind. He lets it paint every dark corner of it with its waves, he lets it take control of his body, until he’s nothing more than the rhythm’s marionette. It's always been easy for him, since the first time, to get lost between songs, feeling like he only exists right there, in that specific moment. It feels liberating, although he doesn’t know exactly where he is escaping from.

A song ends, another one starts, and Donghyuck opens his eyes. He immediately recognizes one of the guys that had been staring at them from the bar while they were talking earlier. The man's gaze is fixed on Jaemin as he tries to make his way through the sea of dancing bodies.

“Nana,” Donghyuck comes closer to alert his friend, because it’s difficult to be heard over the music. His lips almost graze Jaemin’s ear when he speaks. “There’s a guy coming our way. He was checking you out earlier, from the bar.”

He retreats fast enough to catch Jaemin rolling his eyes, the action making him laugh. Wasn’t it just yesterday when Jaemin was making out with another random guy at Yukhei’s house? What’s changed? _ Oh, right. Lee Not-So-Straight-Now Jeno _. Donghyuck is about to make a sneaky comment about it when Jaemin suddenly grabs his face.

“Don’t freak out.” It’s all Jaemin says.

Donghyuck’s brow furrows.

“Why would I freak out?”

The answer comes a second later, in the form of Jaemin’s lips pressed against his own. His body is suddenly so much closer, the hands that were merely resting on his hips before are now sitting at the lower of his back, arms surrounding him completely. It catches Donghyuck off guard for the briefest moment, but he's letting out a soft laugh and kissing back before the surprise even reaches his expression. 

Now _ this _ definitely takes the prize.

Jaemin's lips on his skin follow the trail to his neck, and he rests his head on Donghyuck's shoulder, hot breath leaving embers on his skin. It doesn't take him a second to follow along, securing his arms around Jaemin's neck and leaning closer to his ear. 

"I'm telling Jeno~" he singsongs, his tone tainted with something wicked. Their bodies are now dancing in unison, only a beat slower than the rhythm coming out of the speakers. 

"Shut up." 

But Donghyuck can still hear the smile in his voice.

"Make me." 

Laughter breaks out of them, making them shake enough to separate a little. Donghyuck uses that moment to peek over Jaemin's shoulder towards the direction of the guy, and he sees the annoyed expression on his face, as if someone had just taken out the last dessert on the table. It just makes him laugh even harder. _ What a prick _, he thinks, and he takes Jaemin by the nape just to piss him off a little more. 

Once they stop laughing, he hears Jaemin's voice against his ear once again. 

"Remind me, why did we never try anything with each other?" 

Jaemin draws back enough so Donghyuck can see his eyes glowing in mirth and the soft shape of a smirk in his mouth.

His friend is beautiful. The kind of beautiful that shines even looking from afar.

"The world isn't ready for us, Nana."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mark's in the next chapter we swear we live for markhyuck!! sorry!!! dsdsfdsf
> 
> we hope you all are enjoying the story so far, please take a look at the new tags, they're going to be important for the next chapters. 
> 
> also a massive thank you to all the people who commented and left kudos, remember that any kind of feedback is well received and we'd love to hear your thoughts on the characters and the dynamics and just anything you'd like to tell us!! it makes us very happy and encourages to keep writing and do better in the future ╰(*´︶`*)╯ 
> 
> please expect the next update in maybe 14-15 days~
> 
> (if you have any question regarding the plot, the new tags or anything in particular you can leave us a comment or @ at twitter -[viccxes](https://twitter.com/ongaywoo) [sunshyun](https://twitter.com/sunshyun)-, or even via [cc sunshyun](https://curiouscat.me/hyuckly) [cc viccxes](https://curiouscat.me/markhyun) , we'll answer in the most helpful way possible without giving too much away hehe.)
> 
> p/s: nahyuck nation RISE


	3. all this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mark lee!!!!!! finally we meet 
> 
> okay so before you start we need to announce that we're clowns. and because of that this chapter required a lot of last minute revising and correcting and at one point we were literally just blind to our own mistakes and had no more time to keep checking anyway, so we really hope it all feels okay (｡;＿;｡) we'll try to do better next time! 
> 
> (it'd be of great help if you let us know your thoughts!! -hands begging emoji-)

iii.

Mark is a summer child. 

He thinks it was a long time ago, probably when he was too young to remember, that the sun had stretched his hand out to him and touched him, leaving his imprint in his soul, claiming him as his. 

Even when his family had moved to Vancouver, the sun had followed after him, carrying within himself the echoes of laughter and the summer breeze hitting his skin, wrapping him in specks of bronze. Summer was sunflowers and sandcastles and feeling his heart warm, even when his home wasn't. 

It was his favorite season, and even so, Canada had still taught him to love its winter. Its winter with the large trench coats and the rain falling over his head, making the asphalt shimmer with every city light. Vancouver in winter was a blurred painting and Mark had learned to love every single bit of it. 

Now, as he stares out the window of his apartment into the streets of Seoul, he feels like there are two voids he can't fill.

There is no sun to caress his skin and welcome him home, and Seoul's upcoming winter is nothing like Vancouver's. The city looks grey and dull, no rain to reflect golden on the asphalt and no summer to bathe everything in sunlight.

Mark can feel traces of summer in his brother's voice over the phone and he wants to cling to it like a madman, but of course, winter here has a way of adding ice shards to everything.

"You can't do that, Mark," Johnny is saying through the speaker. He sounds worried mostly, but Mark can detect bits of anger between the words. "It'll wear you out in weeks."

Mark sighs.

"The conditions are not bad, I swear, otherwise you know I wouldn't have taken the job. And it won't be every weekend, I'm just going to fill in some shifts."

Being a gas station attendee at night during weekends isn't exactly ideal for a college student that already has a part-time job. Mark knows it, and Johnny does too. What Johnny doesn't know though is that Mark always feels like he's not doing enough, like he's taking more than he can offer back, the feeling being ugly enough to stain his thoughts during night and day.

"But it isn't necessary," Johnny insists. "Mark, mom and dad have everything they need. And we're doing fine now. Mom’s getting better and you already spend the afternoons working at the café, please don't give up your weekends too. It's the only time I actually see you getting some rest."

_ I could do more _, a tiny voice that sounds so much like his own whispers at the back of his mind. Mark opens the window of his bedroom and grabs the phone that was placed on the desk, switching back from speaker mode. He takes a seat on the fire escape, relishing in the way his own demons seem to drown under the melody of Seoul waking up.

"It'll be fine, Johnny. I already said yes, this conversation is pointless." 

"You know I'll try to convince you again once I get home," Johnny says, trying to sound nonchalant, but they both know that he will definitely try to talk Mark out of it later. "I'll be there around 5pm, maybe we could order some pizza?" He adds, and Mark is glad that he dropped the talk about his new job for now.

"Yeah, sounds good," he smiles, and his next words come in a slightly higher tone, "did you sleep at Taeyong's again?"

"Yes, I didn't want to take a taxi to come back."

"Oh? I thought you guys were hanging out at Yuta's apartment."

Mark had wanted to go too, but his body had betrayed him. The past week had been a bit rough on him, with too many class papers due day after day and the café being more packed than usual with students that wouldn't leave the vicinity of the university for the life of them, running around from here to there and filling their brains with coffee to meet deadlines. By the time night had come he could feel it weighing on his eyelids and shoulders, pinning him to the sofa where he had fallen asleep. 

Perhaps Johnny is right about him needing the weekends (he knows he is), but well, it's not like he could let himself give up that little bit of extra money anyway.

"We were," Johnny says. "But then Jaehyun called and he took us to Neo City. Taeyong’s apartment was closer than ours, so."

Mark can hear the casual shrug in his voice even though he can't see it, and he wants to comment something about how Taeyong's place seems to be a lot more convenient than their own home lately, but the mention of the club distracts him.

"Neo City?" The name tastes a bit foreign in his mouth, a bit bitter, but he knows the place. After all, Neo City is an island for the rich in the middle of a neighborhood of working people. It stands out like the Trojan Horse, whether he likes it or not. _Wow_, he feels the impulse to say, _so how’s the experience of sharing a dancefloor with people who think they’re better than you just because they have a lot of money?_

But there are battles Johnny has never been willing to fight. 

In the end he says, "Jaehyun is really loaded, huh. So how was it? Did Jungwoo get to make out with some rich brat?" 

Johnny laughs, and even though it's cold and the sun is hidden the sound spreads warmth to every end of his body. 

"Last time I checked Doyoung is a brat but not a rich one, so uh, no, not really." 

Mark's mouth widens and he joins him, "Oh my god," he half-screams, while laughter blooms from his chest in full force, allowing him to loosen up and breathe for the first time since he woke up. He can’t stop himself from worrying about all the noise he’s making at such an early hour though, so he grabs the window frame to support himself as he stands up, going back into his room.

It's at that moment when he hears it. A familiar, tiny meow that crawls from the hallway all the way into the apartment.

"We had a good time, Mark," his brother continues over the phone, but Mark is only half paying attention to what he says now. "You should come some time." 

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," Mark says, absentmindedly, coming out of his room and heading to the kitchen. “Johnny, I have to go. Talk to you later!"

"Wow, 'kay, bye then! Get ready for my ted talk!" He hears his brother shout before hanging up. 

_I'll worry about that later_, he thinks, as he leaves the phone on the counter and opens the cupboard to grab a bowl and pour some milk in it.

When he comes out of the apartment a moment later, he is greeted with hazel eyes staring straight at him.

He smiles.

"Where have you been, Oliver?"

The cat meows before walking up to him.

  


♖

Jaemin fell asleep last night thinking that Lee Jeno is like a song, a melody he knows by heart since his earliest memories, the chords and lyrics imprinted somewhere between his heart and soul, and the rhythm always steady, always safe.

And yet, the last thought that had crossed his mind before losing himself to slumber had been that he had still managed to mess up the tempo. 

He barely gets any sleep that night, and he wakes up a couple of hours later, feeling a bit disoriented first, a bit hungover second. Most of all, he can hear yesterday's events still playing in his mind like a broken record; booming through his head with too many words hanging in the air, some of them unsaid, some others carrying his own voice and tainting his thoughts with remorse, so heavy that Jaemin can actually feel them weighing on him and pinning him down like an anchor.

He's been an asshole to the only person that has held him in his arms throughout the years, from when he was a small child curling up in his bed and wishing for his parents to come back home, to the time when he was a lost teenager who had discovered too much too soon, and any time in between and after that. 

When he steps into the shower later, warm water envelopes his skin and Jaemin lets out a sigh, closing his eyes and feeling the sweat from last night washing off. His mind is still going, a million thoughts per second, and he's thankful for the loud noise that the water drops make when they hit the tiled floor because it helps him drown some of them, until there’s only the image of Donghyuck's expression left from last night.

He knows what he confessed last night, can still hear the ghost of his own voice telling Donghyuck that he's in love with his best friend between flashes of loud music and red lights. And he can still recall Donghyuck not even batting an eye, nodding at Jaemin's statement like he'd only said something about how good the cocktails tasted.

It makes a certain thought take shape in his mind.

He thinks back at all the times he reached to grab Jeno's hands to play with them, all the times he moved closer —even when they were already pressed against each other on the couch— because he felt Jeno was too far away, all the times he rested his head against his, or on his shoulder, or his lap.

Maybe he's been screaming that he loves Jeno with his actions all this time.

(And the thing is, what's the point of keeping his feelings guarded if he's been so obvious about them anyway? What's the point of hiding if it's hurting him and if he's already hurt Jeno because of it?

_ There isn't any _, his own voice supplies.)

It's that realization what makes him step into the living room later, with an apology and words he's kept shut for years hanging from his lips and waiting to come out the moment Jeno lets him speak, but when he looks around there's no sign of the boy. 

It's dreadful, the feeling that catches in his throat then. For a brief moment it almost feels like a chance to breathe, but all of a sudden he can feel fear starting to settle on his chest, this unplanned moment allowing for him to overthink and he has to push through his brain to get over it and take himself to stand before the closed door of Jeno's bedroom, hand already lifted and ready to knock on it. 

_ No backing out, Jaemin. _ He's going to do this. 

But then the sound of the front door opening freezes him in place.

"Jaemin hyung will kill us if we wake him up."

The voice sounds barely above a murmur and he has trouble making out all the words, but he recognizes it as Jisung's. 

"Let him, then," a second voice answers, and even though the coldness of it is strange to him and makes him shiver, Jaemin knows it belongs to Jeno.

He stands where he is for a few seconds, suddenly feeling a little taken aback, but it's that cold creeping up his spine what in the end props him to move and walk up to the living room. But when he gets there Jeno is nowhere to be seen. He would get a weird sense of _ deja vu _ from before if he wasn't so sure that he had heard Jeno's voice just some seconds ago, and if it wasn't for the boy bent over the couch, looking for something inside a bag. 

"Jisung?" He asks. The boy startles at the sound, looking up and turning around with the speed of lightning until he catches sight of him and calms down. Jaemin is barely able to suppress a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"You scare me like that and not even greet me with a hug? Or a hello? That's cold, hyung." 

Jisung looks only mildly offended, though. His features are painted with amusement and suddenly Jaemin's insides feel lighter. He hurries to where the younger boy is standing and envelopes him in a tight, warm hug that he probably needs more than Jisung does. His friend must notice this because he's quick to return it, wrapping his arms around him and stroking his back. 

"I'm sorry, Jisungie," Jaemin says when they separate, voice soft as he reaches with his fingers to fix some loose strands on his hair. "You know you're my favorite, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do."

Jisung's smile is bright enough to make up for the lack of sunlight entering through the windows and warm enough to make him forget about the cold clinging to his back. It goes without saying, but Jaemin would fight with nails and teeth for that smile.

"Where's Jeno, though? I'm sure I heard him just now." 

"Oh, he just went back to the car for his phone."

Jaemin's mind takes a second too long to process that information. 

"Wait," he says, once he catches up, “so he wasn't here before? Then where-"

"I slept over at Jisung's." 

Jaemin turns around to see Jeno closing the door behind himself. His voice still has ice attached to it, sharp and cutting as if something had struck it in all the wrong ways. The apartment turns cold and dim once more.

It makes him a bit angry, Jaemin has to admit. Even though he has no right to be, even though he knows he deserves it. But he's not used to being on the receiving end of Jeno's anger. Hell, even to other people he's never seen him act anything short of polite. This is strange to him, _ this Jeno _ is strange to him, and he's getting tired of not recognizing the person he's looked at and through for more than half of his life, always meeting him halfway.

But he knows that isn't Jeno's fault.

(Mostly, he's getting tired of not recognizing himself around him, he thinks.)  
  
Still, he tries to make his tone light.

"So you're saying that I was extra careful last night to not wake you up for nothing?"

_I'm offering a truce_, is what he wants to convey through it.

_I'm begging for it._

But Jeno doesn't take it.

"You could've texted," Jaemin tries again.

"Where did you go last night?"

They both look at Jisung. There's suddenly a small pang of guilt and embarrassment in Jaemin's chest, because for a moment he had almost forgotten he was there. 

"To Neo City, with Hyuck."

Jisung's mouth widens as if he had remembered something, but before he gets a chance to reply Jeno is speaking again and Jaemin's attention is back on him.

"Then I guess you wouldn't have had time to see my text anyway." 

"Now what does that mean?"

But oh, he knows what he means. He can read it on Jeno's face, on the way his gaze darkens, eyes staring daggers into his; he can sense it on the way the words bolt out of his mouth, almost stumbling over one another as if they would burn his tongue if he didn't let them go as soon as possible.

He knows what he means by the shade that hides behind his voice, because he heard it the day before too.

"I guess you wouldn't have had time to see my text anyway, _ because you would have been too occupied sucking face with some nameless guy _," is what Jeno doesn't say. 

The air is thick around them when Jisung's voice cuts through it, or more like, breathes fresh air into it, because the younger's voice is never sharp enough to cut through anything.

"Hyung, we didn't have any breakfast."

Something in Jaemin's throat unclenches, and he can see as if it was in slow motion how Jeno's features soften too, going back to their normal, familiar state. Except it's not directed at him. 

And it hurts.

"Go ahead," Jeno says, looking at Jisung. He's smiling but Jaemin can see how it doesn't reach his eyes. "There should be plenty of food in the kitchen. I'm gonna get changed, I'll be with you in a minute."

Once Jisung leaves so does the fake smile on Jeno’s face, and Jaemin sees clearly how it gets washed off by a wave of tiredness and annoyance, the emotions so unfamiliar on Jeno’s features it makes Jaemin think he’s looking at a portrait of his best friend, because even though he recognizes every part of it none of them feels right, none of them feels real.

“I-” He starts, but Jeno has already turned around and is walking towards his bedroom. Jaemin uses all of his will to not start crying, and he runs, getting himself in front of the other boy. "I want to talk to you." 

"Well, I want to play games with Jisung now so I guess we'll talk later."

_ No, no, no, _ he wants to say. This is not how the song goes. Jaemin doesn’t recognize these chords, and the tempo is changing, too fast for him to follow. He looks for Jeno’s gaze, and when their eyes meet he can see fear, and doubt, and longing, but he doesn’t know if those are Jeno’s emotions or his own.

"But it can't-" He tries again, only to get silenced by Jeno’s hand on his shoulder.

"You weren't so willing to talk yesterday, so I'm sure whatever you have to say can wait."

Jeno walks past him, closing the door behind his back. Jaemin can’t decide if his touch was cold or warm.

(His head starts hurting, so he stops thinking about it.)

Jisung is sitting on the counter when Jaemin walks into the kitchen. He has his phone on one hand and a double-chocolate cookies jar in the other, and judging by the crumbs on his black shirt he must already have eaten one or two. Jaemin notices how Jisung's eyes look past behind him, expecting Jeno to come, but when he doesn't he just takes another cookie from the jar, offering it to Jaemin accompanied by a tiny smile.

“Thank you,” Jaemin says, accepting it. Then he moves to grab two clean glasses from the dishwasher to pour some milk on them. 

“Thanks, hyung,” Jisung says when Jaemin passes him the glass. “Um, Chenle hyung is asking if he can come after his practice?”

_ Maybe it's a sign _, Jaemin thinks. Jisung being there, Chenle asking to come. Maybe it’s not the best day to sit down on the couch with Jeno —the same couch they had picked together a few months ago, on a cold spring morning; Jaemin had worn a tank top, misjudging the weather, and had ended up using Jeno’s hoodie by the end of the day— and tell him that he’s sorry and that his erratic behaviour might have something to do with being in love with him.

Jeno clearly didn't want to talk to him, and if Jaemin didn't give him support and understanding yesterday, maybe he could give him the time he needs and a funny lazy sunday afternoon after all.

_ Okay, Na Jaemin. That sounds like a plan. _

“Sure, tell him to drag Renjun’s ass here as well, it’s been ages since I last saw him.” He ends up saying, “Ask him if Donghyuck’s coming too.”

“On it,” Jisung nods. Jaemin lets himself enjoy the chocolate cookie as his eyes focus on how fast Jisung’s fingers move across the phone screen. They get Chenle’s answer soon, but it’s not the answer Jaemin’s expecting. “He says Donghyuck hyung hasn’t returned yet.”

“What...? But he left his car there." _And it's been the whole fucking night, what the hell._ "Can you call him?”

Jaemin can remember the other boy waving at him from the sidewalk as he got into his taxi last night, and he had assumed that he would go back to Renjun and Chenle’s place after spending some other time dancing. But now that he thinks about it, Jaemin had sent him a text last night when he got home, a very short, very misspelled “imhoe- home***”, and it's weird that his phone hasn't been assaulted by a thousand texts from Donghyuck, relishing in that drunk text mistake.

“Hyung,” Jisung calls, and the tone he uses makes Jaemin look at him directly. "His phone's dead.”

Jaemin groans, but worry starts washing over him. He grabs his phone from his pocket and finds Donghyuck’s number quickly. He tries calling him once again, but just as it happened with Jisung the phone call doesn’t even connect. 

“What the fuck? Where is he?”

“Maybe he met someone last night at the club?” Jisung offers, but it’s clear in his voice that he doesn't buy that option either.

Jaemin shakes his head.

It would make sense, if he had. Donghyuck could have easily brought someone home with him, he could have gone to someone else’s apartment very easily too, and that could explain why he didn’t reply to Jaemin’s text or why he didn’t charge his phone. 

It would make sense, yeah, if only they were talking about Jaemin himself and not his other friend.

“That’s not really like Donghyuck though, is it?”

  


♖

The mattress isn't soft enough, the sheets are somehow cold, and the weight of the arm around his waist feels sweaty and wrong. 

(It hadn't felt wrong last night though, when it was hooked under his thighs, bending Donghyuck's legs over so he could feel all of him.)

Donghyuck opens his eyes slowly, taking in his surroundings as he couldn't do the night before, because he was busy getting kissed, on his lips, his neck, his shoulders, his legs. He tends to close his eyes when he’s being fucked, so the light blue walls that greet him good morning as soon as he wakes up are a nice contrast from the dark hue that he remembers from last night.

Last night. A puff of memories comes crashing into his brain in a blink. 

Jaemin and his confession, Neo City, the neon lights dancing all over his skin, the loud music pumping through his body, creating a pulse of its own.

A couple of drinks or more.

He hadn't had enough to forget the events of the night before, but he did have enough to feel embers beneath his skin by the time he and Jaemin had come out of the building. Drink after drink he had felt the splash of heat in his stomach, smoldering him little by little from inside out, spreading through his body like a fever. 

His plan when Jaemin had suggested leaving had been to sleep it all away, maybe wash it off with an even hotter shower, fight fire with fire. But after Jaemin said goodbye he'd met them. A pair of eyes, pretty, suggestive, dark, burning with the same fire he felt in the pit of his stomach, behind his ribcage, at the back of his throat. 

He did fight fire with fire after all, when he and the guy ended up in the latter's apartment, lying on his sheets with no layers between the flames emanating from both their bodies. It was quickfire, relieving, wet, not so different from the sea of sweaty bodies moving together back at Neo City. 

Except a bit more painful, but he won’t complain about that.

He gets more memory flashes as he disentangles himself from the other man, every aching pain on his body a reminder of how much he enjoyed himself just a few hours ago. Donghyuck can feel his body is still a bit sensitive in some areas, and when he finally gets on his feet he winces at the stab of pain in his lower back.

He's also... not as clean as he would like to be.

_Gross_, Donghyuck thinks, _my god, this is gross._

His clothes are right beside him on the floor and he doesn't waste any time in grabbing them and getting out of the bedroom, not sparing a single glance at the boy who's still sleeping soundly on his bed. Donghyuck cracks a quick smile when he thinks about how he’s probably going to wake up much later, considering how he wore him off during the night.

Once he's in the living room he checks the essentials: his wallet, keys and phone are still in his jeans pockets. Donghyuck gets dressed as fast as he can, and minutes later he's already walking out the door.

He's greeted by a long hallway, a row of doors at one side and a high view of houses and low buildings at the other. It's a landscape that he doesn't immediately recognises, the brick walls too grey, the skyline too free. 

_Where am I_, Donghyuck asks himself, because he remembers getting in a car but not for long, and then the next thing that pops into his mind is the ceiling of that boy's bedroom. He doesn't even recall the stairs that he clearly had to climb at some point because judging by how high the view is, he might be at a third of fourth floor. 

Donghyuck seizes his phone from the bottom of his pocket and he’s not able to hold in the gasp that crosses his mouth when he finds it has run out of battery.

As in, he can’t access Google Maps to know where he is, how far away from Gangnam he is, he can’t call Jaemin to let him know how the night went in the end, and he can’t call Jeno to ask him to pick him up with his car.

He knows walking is not an option, and public transport, in his current state, would only secure him a spot besides his parents scandal digital articles online. Donghyuck can already imagine it, if the wrong person recognizes him South Korea’s press would eat him alive, they would be thrilled to have another pawn to oh so tragic story of his parents’ divorce.

_Fucked_, he thinks. _I am fucked._

Literally and metaphorically. 

“This is torture,” he mutters to nobody in particular, just maybe to himself. He’s going to have to ask for directions and hope that the car ride was as short as he remembers and he’s not, like, on the other side of Seoul.

He sighs, puts back the phone in his pocket and tries to make himself look a bit more presentable. He knows his eye makeup is probably smudged, and his hair has suffered from hands that wildly roamed on it repeatedly during the night, making it look even worse than when he just wakes up with the pillow as his hairdresser.

And there’s nothing he can do about the stickiness he can feel on his stomach, and between his thighs.

_Next time my hand will do_, he thinks, taking the stairs down quickly, his mind occupied reprimanding himself and cursing Jaemin for making him go to Neo City.

That’s why he doesn’t notice the little bowl full of milk by the end of the second floor stairs. He totally misses it, but his left foot doesn’t, in fact it dives right into it, making him almost trip and fall to the ground.

“What the fuck,” he half-yells, catching a glimpse of a dark orange shadow that looks too much like a cat running in his opposite direction.

He's about to look down to see how much of a mess he's made but suddenly he hears a muffled shriek to his left, and when his gaze follows the sound he's met with a pair of dark brown eyes, filled with shock and something so, so much worse.

Recognition.

-

  


Donghyuck's blood boils.  
  
It’s not the kind of recognition he’d feared though, but it might be even worse, because he knows those eyes too, and he knows those lips, now open in something like shock.

Of course out of all people it would be Mark Lee the one to encounter him in this situation. _Of course._

If there's someone up there watching he's sure they must be laughing their asses off at him, and maybe he would laugh too, if only his mouth didn't taste like ashes.

It's been several months since the last time they saw each other, a brief awkward encounter at Jaehyun's house that involved a lot of Donghyuck drunkenly glaring at the other guy, staring daggers into his eyes when their gazes fleetingly met, while all of his friends laughed at him for being so petty over something silly and stupid that had happened years ago.

But Donghyuck carries his pride like a fire torch and that night still feels like fuel running through his veins.

“Donghyuck?” Mark calls him, still crouched down on the floor, hair a bit tousled and a pair of round thin glasses framing his stupid cute face. Donghyuck has never seen him with glasses before but he quickly adds them to the list of things that he hates about Mark Lee.

He’s got a quick comeback falling off his lips almost, the words _get lost_ ready to snap like a whip, when his mind suddenly stops revolving around Mark Lee’s existence and it catches up with the scene taking place around him.

A cat. There was a cat and now it's gone, nowhere to be seen.

“Dammit, Lee, did I-” He gasps, suddenly terrified to be involved in a pet disappearance situation, no matter who the owner is. “Did I just make you lose your cat?”

Mark knits his brows, clearly puzzled at Donghyuck asking him that instead of blatantly cursing.

“It's not my cat,” is all he says as he gets up. 

The words don't do anything to appease Donghyuck’s distress though, quite the contrary.

“Your neighbor’s cat then? Shit, Lee, shit.”

“It's not-" He sees him let out a heavy exhale and look away from him before continuing. Truth be told, Donghyuck can't blame him. It's too fucking early for both of them to be dealing with each other. "It's just a stray cat, a very distrustful and scared one, but he’ll come back, don’t worry! They do that all the tim-" Mark's eyes suddenly widen and he stops mid-sentence, gaze focused somewhere near the floor. "Shit, your pants.”

Donghyuck looks down. It seems like he interrupted the cat's breakfast before it could have a taste of it, seeing that the milk is splattered all over the cuff of his jeans and above.

"Ugh, great…" _Add that to the list _, Donghyuck whines, _ sweat, alcohol, cum and milk. This is definitely one of my lowest moments._ He grimaces. "Can I get any more dirty? Jesus."

He can feel Mark's gaze on him, which makes him want to get the hell out of there, following maybe the steps of the stray cat. Donghyuck would turn around without bidding mark goodbye and hop in the first taxi he could get if he wasn't so self-conscious about his current appearance, worsened thanks to the milk incident.

"What are you doing here?" Mark takes a tiny step towards him, in a way someone would approach an animal they know could bite if he wanted to.

"I’m visiting a friend." 

"In Haebangchon? At 9am on a Sunday?" Mark scoffs.

"Yes, why." 

The lie is obvious, crystal clear, and it hangs between them in one of the most awkward silences Donghyuck’s ever experienced. He doesn’t miss how Mark’s eyes wander quickly over his figure, as if the answer to his question was burnt someway along Donghyuck’s persona.

Turns out it kind of is.

“Oh my god. Oh my-” Mark brings one of his hands to cover his mouth, slightly, like he could hide how stupid (read as: cute) he looks with shock all over his features. “Please tell me you're not escaping from someone's apartment.”

“It's not your goddamn business, Lee.”

“Is it Joohyuk?" 

He tries his hardest to keep his face impassive, he really does. His gaze doesn't waver, as far as he knows his breathing doesn't either, and his shoulders stay put as casual as always, but he's either a very shitty actor (contrary to what some of his professors have told him), or Mark Lee is just exceptionally good at seeing through him. 

He can't stand it, the way his eyes light up in realization. Always shiny, always too big for him to not get lost in there. 

"Oh my god, it _is_ Joohyuk.”

“Maybe. You know what? I don't remember his name.”

At this point the truth is a neon sign hanging from his neck, probably bright enough to make the marks of bites and sucking on the skin there visible to anyone with a pair of eyes, and surely to a gaze so sharp like the one in front of him. To try to hide it is futile, he knows that as well as the other boy does, and yet, he can't help it.

And yet, Mark follows along, a smirk hanging from his lips and a challenge written in those narrowed, knowing eyes.

"Tall, fluffy hair, fairly hot. Really nice, but I must admit he's not really my type."

It's not the same look from that night, Donghyuck thinks, but it is the same glow. _Always shiny, always too big._

He remembers those eyes shimmering like the stars that were hidden above them, vibrant like Seoul's night below their feet. They were vertiginous, dizzying, drawing. 

(He also remembers the cold air hitting his skin once he got out of the water.)

"No one is your fucking type, apparently," he mutters, but before he can gauge Mark's reaction he catches sight of an old man coming out of one of the doors near the end of the hallway, reminding him of where he is. Then a thought slips into his mind. "Wait, you live here, then?" 

Mark nods, seemingly unaware of his comment from before.

"Is Johnny up?" Donghyuck asks, hoping that his voice doesn't sound as wishful as he feels.

He's met Johnny more than a couple of times, and even though he doesn't know him well either, almost every memory he has of him is of the older laughing, cheeks full and eyes small, the atmosphere around him always warm. Even the first time they met Johnny had put an arm around his shoulders when the karaoke had started and said to his ear _"_ _ Go up there, kid, you look like you want to. Just have fun" _, and Donghyuck hadn't needed much encouragement after that.

So yeah, he really likes the guy, certainly a lot more than he likes his brother.

However, his hopes get crushed in an instant with a slow tilt of Mark's head and a frown in his brow.

"No, he isn't here."

"Fuck." 

For a moment he doesn't know what to do. Johnny would have been a safe escape, the best excuse to ignore Mark as much as possible and still get help, and now he is doomed.

He almost considers saying _fuck it_ and just go stand on the side of the street until a cab passes, but the wetness he can feel on his ankles makes him backtrack just a second into that thought. 

In the end he surrenders, letting out a deep sigh. "Would you let me use your phone?"

"What's wrong with yours?"

Donghyuck takes the device out of his front pocket, "Battery’s dead."

Mark has the nerve to look amused before crouching to pick up the now empty bowl. He stops for a moment, scanning his surroundings and making Donghyuck feel a pinch of guilt when he realizes Mark is looking for any sign of the cat.

There is none, but he'd said that it would come back, and Donghyuck can't do anything else but believe him.

"Sure, come in." He puts in the code and opens the door to his apartment. "We’ll do something about your pants too, I’m uh, sorry about that."

Donghyuck just nods, not really taking Mark's words into consideration, because he doesn't want them to alter the image he has of the other boy in his head. Mark Lee is not nice (he thinks back of Mark's fingers delicately pushing some strands of hair out of his face for a second, his thumb faintly grazing his cheek), Mark Lee is, and should be for Donghyuck's petty narrative to make sense, an asshole.

An asshole he now depends on.

Donghyuck watches him as he makes his way in the direction of the kitchen, and he can't stop himself from staring at his back, at his neck, at the way the blue hoodie looks too big on him, and yet his shoulders look wide. Mark Lee always walks so carefree, moves so swiftly, and somehow he's completely unaware of just how strong and unavoidable his presence is. 

(The same way he's oblivious to Donghyuck's eyes glued to him, burning holes wherever his eyes wander on.)

When he comes back he hands him his phone, and Donghyuck mutters the lightest _thank you_ ever, hoping that Mark didn’t catch any of it, because he’s not going to be nice, not to Mark Lee. He starts typing in the only phone number that he's made the effort to memorize, and he lets out a small gasp when Mark’s phone shows him the name of his friend. 

“Why do you have Jeno’s number?”

“Oh,” Mark points to the laptop that's resting on top of the living room table. “We play together sometimes.”

“That traitor,” he says under his breath. Donghyuck lifts the phone to his ear and glares at Mark, who understands the gesture and uses it as a cue to get out of the living room, leaving him alone. It takes Jeno a few seconds to answer, but Donghyuck has already thought about at least three different ways of getting back at him for breaking some unspoken friendship rule by associating himself with Mark Lee.

_“Hey, Mark. Sorry, but I’m a little busy right now.”_

“Ya, Lee Jeno, are you busy for me too?”

He hears his friend gasp, and he can almost picture his face, mouth agape and cheeks red, while his mind rushes a million miles per second trying to come up with an explanation as to _why_ he, Lee Donghyuck, is in the company of, and quote, _ Seoul's biggest asshole, Mark Lee. _ The image is satisfying enough to make Donghyuck ignore that fact, laughing out loud at the voice on his phone shrieking _ "What the hell are you doing where are you!!???" _

It doesn't take him that long to explain his unfortunate situation to Jeno, and to be honest, being able to show just how annoyed he actually is turns out to be almost therapeutic. He's even able to add a bit of humour to it. By the time he ends, and after a fair amount of _"Oh my God”_s and _"But the cat's okay, right?"_ and even a _"Wait, did you just say cum?"_ from the other end, and a lot of _"Pretty, please"_ from himself, Jeno agrees to go pick him up in his car.

"Thank you so much, this is why you’re my favourite person in the world, Jennie~” He ends up the sentence in a high pitch, almost singing in a playful way, completely out of habit. It’s what talking to Jeno does to him, although this time he regrets it immediately because as soon as he finishes the call reality falls on him once more: he’s in Mark Lee’s house, and the last thing he would want is for the other boy to hear him sing.

That’s something reserved for people Donghyuck likes only.

To his own relief, Mark doesn’t show up again at the living room until a couple of minutes later.

“Jeno’s coming to pick me up, in like, half an hour or so.”

“Oh, okay.” 

Donghyuck takes in Mark’s neutral tone, so he leaves the phone over the table and tries to put on a small, fake smile to serve as a thank you for letting him make that phone call. It doesn’t work as he’s expecting though, because when their eyes meet and Mark catches Donghyuck smiling, the older boy widens his eyes and kindly smiles back. And fuck, no, _don’t give me a sincere smile when I’m giving you a cheap fake one_, Donghyuck thinks at the same time he decides that he has to get out of there. 

He starts walking towards the entrance, but Mark’s voice interrupts his steps. “Where are you going?”

“To wait outside?” He explains, without looking back.

“I’m not throwing you out, Donghyuck."

Donghyuck breathes.

He breathes because otherwise he would fucking burst out of his skin. It's too early, too early for Mark's voice to sound so sincere and soft and exhausted.

_ Don't be nice, Mark Lee. You're not nice. _

He's about to turn around and say that out loud, straight to his face, when the other boy's next words make his breath catch in his throat, whatever courage he was mustering dying in his chest before even getting to see the light of day. "In fact, about your pants… you could take a shower.”

“What?” He's looking at him now, and he knows there must be shock and a kaleidoscope worth of emotions painted on his face but he suddenly can't get himself to care.

“Yeah, since it’s my fault you’re dirty and all, or well, you know, not entirely, I mean, we didn't- and Joohyuk-"

Mark's entire face turns red when he stops, and he brings a hand to the back of his neck. Donghyuck is sure his skin is hot from embarrassment, and he wishes, he fucking _prays_, that his expression doesn't mimic the one in front of him. 

Oh my god, _oh my god._

If anyone had told him this morning when he woke up that only twenty minutes later he would be seeing Mark Lee panic after highlighting how they _didn't_ have sex together, he probably would have laughed first, yeah, because of how unrealistic it would have sounded. But then, if he had even suspected it was true, he definitely would have made a run for it, leaving through the fire escape at the speed of lightning, his pride and the cum on his chest be damned. Lee Donghyuck can't believe his luck.

And, _oh god_, yeah, he _is_ blushing. 

"Just- your jeans. Yeah. So, shower?” Mark blurts out, trying to gather the last remains of composure he can find, ears still burning. 

But Donghyuck just can't let it go.

"Did you just-”

"No, no I didn't.”

Mark looks like his insides are about to catch fire. And maybe, _maybe_, Donghyuck takes delight in that, just a little bit, even if he himself would like to parkour his way out of this through the window if he could.

But it must be that moment of amusement what makes him put down the fire torch, the fuel in his veins subsiding for a second, and ask the thing that has been going around his mind since the moment they met at the hallway.

“Why are you being so nice?”

The other's face softens, his blood finally circulating again enough to diminish the blush on his cheeks and the redness on his neck, and he sighs, looking more tired than defeated.

“I _ am _ nice, you’re just really difficult.”

Donghyuck allows himself to consider that for a moment, not for long, but enough so that the idea makes a spot for itself in one corner of his mind, a very dark and hidden corner that he wishes he won't have to look at very often. 

Still, it is there now. 

“Thank you, I guess.”

“That wasn't so hard, was it? I'll prepare the bathroom, wait here,” Mark says, and Donghyuck does.

He waits for Mark while he lets his feelings simmer down completely, from a summer storm to a cold autumn breeze. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.
> 
> how was it?
> 
> (`・ω・´)


	4. you can lean on my arm as you break my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiii, so it's been a while.
> 
> first of all, we need to say a few things about this chapter. if you've paid attention to the tags, you must have seen the one that mentions the loss of a family member. we've done our best not to be careless and insensitive about it, but regardless, it's always going to be a hard topic to tackle, so be careful if you want to read it and if you don't, that's totally okay too. 
> 
> second of all, WE'RE SO SORRY. we've been incredibly busy with both work and uni respectively and also chapter 5 has been really hard to write and we wanted to have it finished before uploading this one so (╥﹏╥) this delay couldn't be helped but hopefully we'll be able to get back on track with the original schedule from now on
> 
> however if this happens again we might make announcements regarding the updating schedule/delays etc on twitter (and also just generally complain about writing) so if you're interested you can follow us! we'll leave the links in the end notes
> 
> all of that said, we hope you like it!

iv.

♖

Mark remembers kissing Donghyuck under flickering lights and surrounded by endless blue. It's an image still vivid in his mind, almost like he’s immersed in a dream rather than a memory. The threads of purple neon lights dancing on their skin, the sound of muffled music coming through the thick walls of crystal, mixed with the murmurs of the city a hundred meters underneath them.

The city was alive that night, vibrant, electric, and at that moment, Mark was too. Maybe he had no choice but to be, given the way that boy with caramel hair and golden skin had been looking at him, warmth coming out of his eyes like they held the sun itself, warmer even than the water that embraced them.

The pool had been empty save for them, shining in a blue so deep, so bright that it resembled the sky above them, clear and starless like all of Seoul's summer nights. Mark hadn't really paid attention to any of that though, once the boy uttered those ten words.

(His voice was caramel too.)

"I won't kiss you if you don't want me to," Donghyuck had said, laying the possibility down in front of Mark, bathed by the moonlight, for him to take it or leave it.

And Mark recalls pulling the other boy closer in a heartbeat, feeling the excruciating need to drown in Donghyuck’s blaze, to get burned and bear a scar on his skin, a print on his heart that served as proof, proof that Mark was capable of desire, proof that he could be selfish, proof that he still existed within the shadow of himself that he had become during those days.

_How_, Mark had been meaning to ask, _how is that, even though I barely know you, everything you say or do makes every single cell in my body react_. It was a scary thought, at the time, the power that Lee Donghyuck could hold if he were to know the real Mark.

Scary, but enticing.

”You can kiss me, Donghyuck,” had been Mark’s answer, and it’d sounded too much like a plea.

(The kisses they shared were surprisingly sweet, a combination between the starless sky and honey.)

“I said Earth to Mark, do you copy?”

Mark lets out a ridiculously short and high-pitched shriek that is followed by a loud, deep laugh almost immediately.

He gets dragged from the memory of that night to his small kitchen, an empty glass of water still in his hand. Johnny is leaned against the fridge, eyes fixed on him and a wide goofy smile plastered on his face that goes straight into Mark's pride, like a punch.

“Shit.” Mark looks around. It's been months since the last time he visited the reminiscence of that night, now Donghyuck's kisses are lingering in his mind like a ghost, and ironically, more vividly than ever. There's no sign of the other boy in the room though, it's only Johnny and Mark, a very panicked Mark, especially when he suddenly notices that he can no longer hear the faint sound of the shower running.

_Oh God, _where_ is Donghyuck? If Johnny sees him he’s not going to let me live after this. It’s over for me._

_RIP Mark Lee. _

“Mark,” Johnny’s voice snaps him out of his train of thoughts again. “Stop spacing out.”

“Sure, yeah, hi," Mark breathes, trying his best to sound like he’s as relaxed as on any other Sunday morning, and not on the verge of screaming. The possibility of the current scenario didn't cross his mind, not even once. “Um, what are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“I know, but you said you would be back around 5 pm.”

Johnny tilts his head.

“Something came up, I couldn’t stay at Tae’s.” His brother shrugs, and Mark would like to reply with something witty, tease him about his friend, or maybe even say something normal like _oh, that's too bad_, but his mind is occupied by one single thought, replaying it over and over.

_Johnny is here. Donghyuck's here. Donghyuck's showering. Or isn't he?_

"Why do you look so terrified? I swear my upcoming Ted Talk is not even that bad. It has graphics," Johnny says then, scanning him attentively with a look on his face that's both amused and worried.

Terrified. Isn't that too over the top?

Though his hands are getting sweaty and he can feel the heat rushing to his cheeks, his heart pumping blood into his system at an incredible fast speed and, okay, he might be a little terrified.

In his defense, he can very well remember a ride home with the air hanging heavy and hot on his shoulders, heating up his face and neck and burning alive that tiny part inside of him that some people like to call dignity. Mostly, he can remember Johnny's suggestive, teasing tone, making him want to crawl out of his skin and jump off the moving car.

_"So... the pool was nice, huh?"_

Mark shivers.

“It's not that." Now. Now's the moment. "Johnny, before making any assumptions please know that—”

“Hi, Johnny," says then a sweet, honey-like voice that travels all the way through the room and right into their ears, spiking up their attention and successfully vanishing into thin air his well-thought-out plea of innocence.

Of course. Of fucking course.

Both he and Johnny turn their heads in the direction of the sound and there he is, leaning against the doorframe, a smirk on his lips and unequivocally aware of the effect his presence will have in this situation, and maybe on Mark too, given how he doesn't get to voice out a reaction before his brother does.

“Holy shit.”

And holy shit, indeed.

Because Lee Donghyuck wearing Mark’s clothes is another whole level of dangerous. Mark can almost see the red lights in the way his hoodie looks too big on him, in the way his face still looks flushed from the heat of the shower, in the little water drops that fall from his hair and down his neck, going over the trail that Mark followed with his lips years ago.

“Oh, Jesus,” Mark shakes his head lightly, trying to shake that night off his mind although he’s sure that Johnny must be reminiscing the same party. Donghyuck and him might have been the only ones using the pool, but the apartment was filled with people and of course they were surrounded by glass walls.

(_"Quiet, Donghyuck," _Mark had said._ “It’s too bad that we’re doing this here, where everyone can see.”_)

“It's not what it looks like,” he adds quickly, because last time Johnny was a real pain in the ass about the whole Donghyuck thing and Mark’s not ready for a second round, sex edition. “He slept here but not with me, I mean, he spent the night in the building? Just, not in our apartment, and—”

“Breathe, Lee,” Donghyuck interrupts him, a cunning smile playing at the end of his lips. “I don't need you to go around airing my sex life, thank you.”

Mark is about to retort, but something that sounds mid-way between a loud exhale and a whistle makes him tear his gaze away from him, words dying in his tongue.

"Wow, wait a sec.” Johnny’s eyes wander between the both of them. “So you didn’t sleep together?”

The world stops moving for a second before a loud, horrified "No!" is reverberating through the walls of the apartment as a form of reply, intensified by the force of both Mark's and Donghyuck's voices shouting in unison, and if previously Mark had been worried about how much noise his laughter was making, then now he will surely encounter a few complaints from his neighbors the next time he enters the Landlord's office to pay rent.

He and Donghyuck look at each other, the latter's smirk nowhere to be seen, and Mark is sure that the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the shower now. Although he's not one to talk, if the way he can feel his ears burning and his chest heaving is any indication of his own state.

Truth is, picturing even for a single second that image, them both together, doing _that_, has been enough to mess him up a little.

(And the tiny, hidden part of him that is able to admit that also kind of wishes that it has messed up Donghyuck a bit too.

But he'd rather not think about any of that.)

"I mean, it's okay if you did, you know," Johnny says, both hands raised in front of him as a sign of defense, a thread of amusement still hanging from his tone.

Mark’s had enough.

"Ugh, shut up." He sighs, taking a second to finally gather his thoughts and choose his words carefully. "Donghyuck's here because we just happened to meet in the hallway and he needed some help."

"Aren't you forgetting a detail?"

There it is, Donghyuck's teasing tone. He should have guessed it. There's no such thing as being careful when it comes to Donghyuck, always unpredictable, always reckless.

He just loves making Mark feel miserable, doesn't he?

"Okay." Mark lets out a longer sigh this time, giving up. "He might have spluttered milk all over his jeans because of me."

_Wait. Doesn't that sound a bit..._

Johnny's mouth falls open before he has the time to rephrase his previous statement, and even though there are no words coming out of it, Mark hears every unsaid joke in the way his brother's eyes twitch.

Donghyuck at least has the decency to look scandalised.

"Not like that!"

Johnny seems like he's about to say something, but then Mark's phone lights up, a new message on display over his spiderman wallpaper. His whole body relaxes when he reads who's sent it.

"Oh, thank god. Jeno's here," he announces.

Horror abandons Donghyuck's features in a heartbeat, and he looks more put together now. But as Mark quickly finds out, that's not exactly a good thing either, because a Donghyuck in his normal state means a Donghyuck that can bite, and that he does.

A naughty smile draws on his lips and his eyes flash with a wicked glow as he puts one hand on his hips and sighs.

"Well, guys, this was a delightful moment we just shared, even if Markie here almost suffers a concussion, but I'll go get my clothes now."

Mark watches him disappear behind the door frame and for a moment he's frozen, anchored in place and fists clenched to his sides in both annoyance and embarrassment.

(He's probably trying to get a grip on himself, honestly.)

"Dude," Johnny tries.

"No," Mark says, without even looking at him.

"Mark."

"Later!" He scream-whispers, and he's suddenly prompted into action by his own voice. He doesn't waste any more time, heading to the cupboards in a heartbeat to search for a bag. Once he's grabbed one, he comes out of the kitchen to find Donghyuck standing in the middle of the living room, his stance a bit awkward for once, as if now that he's no longer in a desperate situation he's not really sure what he's waiting for, or what he should say.

Truth be told, Mark feels a little like that as well.

"Here," he says, handing out the bag for him to take it. "So you don't have to carry around those dirty clothes in your hands."

Donghyuck nods, taking the bag from him, and _God_, _so, so awkward_.

Mark gives a brief nod in return too and he walks past him, heading to the door. He hears Donghyuck following close behind and he realizes he's clenching his fists again, nails digging lightly on the skin of his palms.

Once they're outside he closes the door behind them. Why, though, he has no idea. It's not like they could say something Johnny can't hear. He's also not really sure why he didn't just open the door for him and bid goodbye, instead of coming out of the apartment with him.

There are just a lot of things he doesn't understand about himself when it concerns Lee Donghyuck.

"Well, it was, uh, nice to see you," he says, biting the inside of his cheek as he waits for a reply.

_Why am I so nervous?_

Donghyuck huffs. "Wish I could say the same."

Mark stops the action with his teeth, but he doesn't say anything. He's kind of at a loss for words, too dumbfounded to retort, too exhausted to try to put up a fight.

Turns out, he doesn't have to.

"Jeez, Lee, smile. That was a joke, it could have been worse."

A small, shy smile appears on Donghyuck's lips then, lighting up his whole face, making him glow in glorious bronze against the winter sky. "And, um, thank you for your help, I'll give your clothes back as soon as possible."

He hadn't expected that. Not his voice to sound so clear, so detached from all the dismay he had shown since they met at this exact same spot less than an hour ago, nor his eyes to look so deep and unveiled, and definitely not the feeling in his own stomach, as if a knot he didn't know was there had just lost a bit of its friction, loosening up little by little.

"Okay."

Donghyuck nods one last time and he takes a step back, raising his hand in goodbye before turning around and heading to the stairs. Mark stares at his back as the steps swallow him, his gaze being caught up by the way the white light from the sky turns golden when it reflects on his hair, still wet. It reminds him of rain and cold winter mornings in Vancouver, streets painted with snow and gold hanging in the air.

He watches as Donghyuck gets into Jeno's car, and as they both take off he stays there for a moment, pent up in his floor's hallway and thinking about caramel locks between his fingers and warm (too warm) water, a boy that burns too bright (maybe dangerously so), and wondering what exactly had just happened in this Sunday morning that was so not like any other.

♖

Why, Jeno wonders, does he feel like Jaemin won yet another battle.

Ever since their talk he's been telling himself over and over that Jaemin acted like an asshole, and as such, the least he deserves right now is to meet an icy, burning wall when he looks at Jeno. He thinks —he _knows_— he deserves that, because it's been almost a day and he hasn't been able to take the image off his mind: the look on Jaemin's face, not disgusted, not even surprised, but completely, utterly disbelieving. As if he hadn't been the one to ask.

(As if Jeno himself hadn't already been fighting his own disbelief for months, only to find it mirrored on his best friend's face the moment he decided to open up to him.)

Jaemin deserves for Jeno's words to sting as ice shards, for Jeno's stare to burn his skin like the most merciless winter. Either way it could never feel as cold as the avalanche taking Jeno's chest by storm, suffocating and piercing, the moment he had put an end to their conversation, too defeated to continue, too hurt and ashamed to keep Jaemin in his sight.

And yet.

And yet giving Jaemin exactly that has been the hardest thing he's ever done. He kept his pride, he gained more time, and still he doesn't feel like he won anything. If victory is having Jaemin on the verge of cracking because of him then it might just taste a bit too bitter for his liking.

(So much so that Donghyuck's call had felt almost like his chance to put up a white flag, call it quits and abandon the battlefield. It was a way out and he had been thankful for it, because he couldn't stand being there any longer; looking at Jaemin hurt, fighting him hurt ten times worse.)

“Congratulations, you just rescued me.” is the first thing that his friend says after getting in the car.

His voice sounds tired, with a lack of the usual energy, and Jeno doesn't even want to imagine, if his morning encounter with Jaemin gets labelled as a battle, then Donghyuck coming out of Mark Lee’s apartment with his own dirty clothes in a bag must be the closest thing to a war.

He can’t tell who’s won it, though.

“Should I take you to your car?” he asks. He knows Donghyuck left it and Renjun and Chenle’s apartment last night.

“No. I don't feel like being alone right now.”

“Are you alright?” Jeno asks, finding relief in the way that he can push all his concerns regarding Jaemin to a dark corner of his mind to focus on his friend’s well-being.

(Donghyuck doesn’t have any traces of blood on him, which means that he didn’t kill Mark Lee. Jeno too is glad for that.)

“Short answer, yes.”

“And long answer?”

“You'll need beer and tissues for that one.”

_ah,_ it’s always like that, isn’t it?

Jeno’s been by Donghyuck’s side long enough to know when he should just let the other boy be, and now is one of those moments, so he keeps his mouth shut and turns the engine on once more to start driving back home. He can feel Donghyuck relaxing gradually as they leave mark’s apartment complex behind them, soon lost amongst other buildings.

(The infamous night, as Donghyuck refers to it, is, in contrast to the more recent ones, not a blur in Jeno’s memory. He barely drank, didn’t feel like he needed to, just talking and joking with his friends was enough. Jaehyun’s penthouse was really nice, weirdly cozy despite its nature, and so were his friends. He was surrounded by a mix of sounds, music, chattering, people dancing everywhere, and glass walls that showed some of the surrounding tall buildings cutting through the almost pitched-black sky.

Jaemin, who had been by his side the whole night, came running back to him after going to the bathroom. Someone had took his seat in the crumpled couch so Jaemin planted himself half on top of the arm rest, half on Jeno’s lap, and he grabbed him by the arms, shaking with excitement.

_“Dude, Hyuck is making out with Mark Lee in the pool!”_)

“Did Jaemin get home alright?”  
  
The question comes as Jeno stops on a red light. It's fitting, he thinks, the other's name both ignites an alarm sign in his mind and leaves him frozen for a moment.

“Uh, I wouldn't know, I spent last night at Jisung's.”

“Really?" Jeno can't see the way his brow furrows, but he doesn't need to. "So you two-”

_Haven't spoken? Haven't seen each other? Haven't made up yet?_

There are only so many ways in which that question could end, Jeno thinks, because given the confusion in his friend's tone and the subtle layer of worry that underlies it, he must be aware of everything that went down the day before.

It also doesn't escape him that Donghyuck could probably guess the answer to those questions by himself if he wanted to, (he probably already has), but he knows that Donghyuck wants _him_ to be the one to voice it out.

The thing is, Jeno doesn't feel like giving any answers today. And besides, there's a sudden spark of curiosity twinkling in his chest now.

"How much did Jaemin tell you last night?” he asks, interrupting the other mid-way.

The question takes Donghyuck by surprise for a split second.

“Um, enough to have gulped a few more than two drinks before finishing?”

“Figures," he lets out a huff, a bit sad, a bit bitter, as the light turns green and they start moving again. It's the answer he had expected, and it doesn't exactly bother him, no. It's more like a pang in his chest and a knot in his throat, confusion and pain and relief, all at once. Jaemin had cared enough to feel the need to tell Donghyuck, but why, _why couldn't he care enough to stop me from leaving?_

"Hyuck, listen, can we not talk about him?” he asks then, chancing a glance at his friend so he can read the plea in his eyes.

If he sees it, he chooses to ignore it.

“Jeno, I won't steal the words from Jaemin's mouth, but you guys need to talk.”

“I don't think i have anything to say to him.”

That's not true. He has plenty of things to say to him. He wants to scream at his face, shake him, ask him, beg him, demand him.

(He wants to bury his fingers in his skin and hide in his chest, disappear inside of him until there's no more body for him to feel pain. He wants to cry and kick, beg Jaemin to cry with him, beg him to be him, _Jaemin_, the one who would have never gotten the words wrong and let him leave without apologizing.

He just doesn't know how to word any of that.)

“Well, maybe he does.”

_he should have said it yesterday then_, Jeno thinks, but he doesn’t voice it out, and neither does Donghyuck insist.

Silence stretches over them, mixed with a thread of sunlight pouring in through the buildings, a rare sight these days. It’s not awkward, not at all, and it’s not completely quiet either, the sound of the engine set in the background is still present and it is constantly reminding them both that the car trip has an specific end.

Donghyuck shifts on his seat during a red light, asking for Jeno’s attention without words. When Jeno gazes at him he sees that Donghyuck’s features are softer, his lips shaped into a familiar pout.

When he speaks, his voice has also shifted to a higher tone.

“How do you feel?”

“I'm... okay," he sighs, and it sounds fake even to his own ears. "It's just a shitty day, isn't it? Maybe i'll join you on that beer and tissues thing.”

“it’s going to be alcohol-free beer for you, baby, but hit me up whenever you want.” Donghyuck winks at him, stealing a quick glance to the traffic light right after. Jeno too looks away, and just a second after his eyes have left Donghyuck to check if the light’s green now, he feels a pair of lips pushed swiftly against his right cheek.

“Hyuck!”  
  
“It’s a healing kiss!” Donghyuck laughs, loud, with his mouth wide open, unashamed, like he always does when he manages to steal a kiss. Jeno can’t bring himself to laugh, his heart still feels too heavy, but there’s a smile hanging off his lips for a brief moment.

“But hey,” Donghyuck speaks again, once the car starts moving, “you don't have to lie to me. I listened to Jaemin last night but I'm friends with both of you, Jen, so if you feel like shit just tell me.”

_Just tell me._

Jeno feels his mouth going dry, his hands tighten around the steering wheel. But Donghyuck's words work like a final push, light and fatal, that sends him spiraling down a trail of thoughts that he had been trying to keep at bay for hours (for days, for months, maybe longer). It may be just the push he was missing, though, because all of a sudden he feels the need to let it all out. He knows he can’t keep drowning his words and feelings in alcohol; his friends don’t deserve that, he himself doesn’t deserve that, and most importantly, his emotions don’t deserve that.

No, his emotions deserve to be laid down carefully as they are, raw and pure, honest and messy.

“It was my first time saying it out loud, Hyuck," he starts, "That I- that I like boys." His voice comes out a little shaky, the words still feeling heavy on his tongue, so he takes a quick breath before continuing. "And I wanted him to hear it, it still scared me to death but it was better if it was him, you know. Jaemin's always been by my side during difficult moments and i thought-" another pause, a flash of memory straight to the heart, like a bullet. _This isn't easy._ He doesn't realize at first that he's saying it out loud. "This isn't easy at all."

He can feel his eyes becoming liquid and the words tangling in his throat, one second away from choking him, so he stops, and his friend doesn't say anything else, doesn't give another push.

They both stay quiet for a while, Jeno's eyes focusing on the streets ahead, trying to stop the tears that are threatening to fall. Indeed, it wasn't easy. It _isn't_, but still, to have the words out of his head and floating in the air around them is somehow freeing, and when he feels the warm and firm touch of a hand on his thigh, squeezing there lightly, it's like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. As if his friend is saying, _"It's okay, i will carry some of this burden if you can't."_

He takes a deep breath, letting the sunlight in, and after a few moments have passed, Donghyuck speaks again.

“You know it's okay, right? That you like boys?”

The street in front of them loses focus, the winter swallows once again that feeble thread of sunlight that was cascading over seoul for a moment. The whole world stands still and

Oh.

_Oh._

_Is this what it's supposed to feel like?_

It's funny, he thinks suddenly, how those are exactly the words he's been craving to hear this whole time. It's funny, because he had never expected to hear them from Donghyuck first.

It's funny because he has pictured a hundred different scenarios for the moment in which he would finally hear those words directed at him, and he was happy in all of them, relieved, reborn even.

It's funny, except it's not.

Because in most of those scenarios it was Jaemin's voice echoing through every crevice of his mind, light as a whisper, firm as a kiss, soft as a caress.

It was Jaemin's voice the same it had always been; when he lost his first competition, when his dog got sick, when his grandmother passed away. Constant, soothing, unwavering, like the way he had held him on his bed just one night ago.

(In some of them, the most unrealistic ones, it was his parent's voice. He would imagine them staring at him for a moment, pensive, and just as he would think that it was all over, that he had messed up and lost them, they would get up and hug him, tell him _it's okay, you're our son and we love you, no matter what_.

_No matter what._

But he knew that would never happen, could never happen.)

And in some others, it was his own voice. In one of those mornings where he dared to look at himself in the mirror and take it all in, not just his reflection but everything underneath. In one of those days where looking at Jaemin didn't feel like a curse, but like a miracle.

Donghyuck's voice has wiped away all of those first-time scenarios, and even though he takes a few seconds to mourn them, he's learned that just because things don't always turn out the way we want them to, they aren’t somehow worse because of it. And when he parts his lips to answer, still feeling the light touch of fingers rubbing circles on his thigh, he can also feel the taste of hope at the tip of his tongue.

_"You know it's okay, right?"_

His next words don't sound like he's always wished them to, but they sound like a leap of faith. And it's enough, for now.

“Yeah, I think I do."

And if he doesn’t, with friends like this, his chosen family, of course he will.

Donghyuck's hand leaves his thigh and then he can feel a finger poking at his cheek. It makes him smile, briefly, surely.

“I mean, you can just look at me," his friend says, and his voice is enough to make his insides that little warmer. "I'm right here, gay and thriving, living the dream-”

Jeno’s right hand abandons the steering wheel for a split second to punch Donghyuck in the arm, then it comes back to his own face, sweeping away some unshed tears. “Ugh, you're an idiot.”

“Hey! I'm fragile," his friend complains, “and you just touched Mark’s hoodie so you’re cursed now.”

“You’re _wearing it!_”

“Yeah, well, I'm always cursed.”

Both of them laugh, and it’s natural, better than any song that could be played on the radio.

They arrive shortly after that, and even though Jeno’s heart sinks a little bit just thinking about seeing jaemin again, this time it doesn’t feel like he’s going to run out of air.

Donghyuck steps out first, and even the way he walks seems a bit lighter now.

“i’m going to stay a while," he says. "You’ll have to take me to my car later though.”

Before Jeno can open his mouth to protest Donghyuck has already grabbed his hand, and he’s dragging him towards the elevator.

“Jeno," he speaks again, as the door closes.

“Yes?”

“Remember, talk.”

(Jeno wants to say he'll try, but it might be easier said than done.)

  
♖

  
The question Chenle asks him is the same one Jisung never got to ask his brother.

_"So you're sure you're alright?"_

Maybe it was because Jisung had never known how to push and his brother had never known how to give, but the words had made a prison for themselves inside his mouth and had never found the right way out.

Jisung and Chenle are the contrary. Chenle knows exactly how to push, and when it comes to giving, there's too much Jisung has told him, too much that Chenle knows and has seen, so Jisung allows himself a moment to think about the question before answering.

That morning he had woken up to loud voices climbing all the way from downstairs and into his room: his parent's voices, mad, angry, hysterical, as they almost always were lately.

As if they all needed the reminder to be loud and piercing.

Sometimes that's what comes with death, he guesses, and he can't say he's not used to it, to the yelling trying to fill the place of a voice that's been shut down forever, the void of a presence that's become nothing but a quiet ghost in their memories, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make something ache inside of him every time, like being pushed in a place that's already been bruised. It hurts enough that when he had looked at Jeno lying beside him, his eyes opening slowly and his brow slightly furrowed as he peeked outside the covers to try to find out where all that noise was coming from, he had muttered the only thing that always came to his mind in moments like that.

_("Hyung, can we get out of here?")_

But _here_ wasn't exactly the yelling, the noise, it's what comes after, what they had encountered when they went downstairs. The stillness of it all as his parents suddenly stood awkwardly and quiet each on one side of the living room, the wooden furniture doing nothing to warm up the place that felt as cold as the marble floor, as bleak as the light that entered through the windows.

A loud silence that had persisted as his mother tried to regain some of her composure and came up to hug them, a silence heavy on his shoulders as his father offered them a stern smile from afar. And still, it had been as good as it could get, maybe even better than most days when Jisung had smiled back and told them he would have breakfast at his friends' place and was only met with a nod, no further questions asked, no complications —Jisung tries very hard not to be a complication, ever, and even less to his parents, for they all had enough in their plates as it was.

It's not like he blames them for that, he doesn't exactly blame them for anything.

He supposes that everyone has their own ways of dealing with heartbreak. Some people break and recover, some people break and give up, and some people swallow it up until the pieces of their heart become sharp and cutting, scratching them from the inside until the only thing that's intact about them is the shell they show to everyone else. That's the case of his parents, except that there isn't really any shell that his own son can't see right through.

His brother had gone and left behind a fractured home none of them could have foreseen, and Jisung's past the point of being mad at them for reacting that way, for letting themselves get tangled up in this endless web of arguments that lead nowhere but to more heartbreak. _A good son_, that's what he told himself he should be now, that's what he's been trying to be, acting as the best and only common ground for them that he knows he is, waiting for the worst to pass and watching as each of them distract themselves with their own occupations until night falls upon them.

(It's an endless, always ongoing cycle that only lets a bleak of sunlight in from time to time, but that's okay. It's only every now and then that he allows himself to escape, that he desperately needs to.)

Jeno and Jaemin's world is usually a good place to escape to when he needs it to be, but when they had arrived to their apartment, Jisung could sense the tension hanging in the air like knives, and the cold sticking to the couch where he's seen his friends cuddling more than a hundred times.

Jisung has learned to search for sparks of life though, maybe to make up for all the life that his own home lost, and in between Jaemin's arms and words and the smell of chocolate, and Jeno's hand on his shoulder, he had found them.

The air between them felt cold, but Jeno's presence was warm and Jaemin's was too, and even though the kind of heartbreak his friends are going through right now is still somehow of a mystery to him, he can imagine they'll find their way of dealing with it too. And if he knows them at all, it'll be a much better way than the one his parents had found.

It's a comforting thought.

Chenle is waiting for an answer when he looks at him, and before giving him one he takes it all in; his parents, his friends, chenle, the heartbreak.

(Jisung isn't really sure yet what his own way of dealing with heartbreak is, sometimes he's not even sure if he's dealing with it at all, but the way Chenle's reassuring smile sits like a warm blanket on his chest may be enough of an answer, for now.)

"Yeah, I think I'm alright," he says, at last.

He doesn't think he's lying.

-

  
Jeno and Donghyuck arrive into the apartment some time later in a surge of noise and familiar laughter, Donghyuck's unmistakable loud and high-pitched voice echoing across the hallway, and it works like a spark; Chenle is on his feet and screaming immediately, Jaemin comes running back from the kitchen, and even the sun makes an appearance, sunbeams suddenly cascading over the wooden floor.

Jisung lets the fleeting moment pull him back from his talk with Chenle, and he leans back on the couch, allowing himself to set up a tiny wall in his mind again, low enough to never forget the tainted thoughts that it holds, but thick enough to not be consumed by them.

It's not a hard thing to do, not around them, not when he can hear the sound of his friends laughing and chattering like bells ringing in the air. And not when soon enough he can feel laughter blooming in his own chest, like a warm reminder that winter will pass and give way to spring, and even though his home may be broken beyond repair, he knows this right here will never be.

(He won't let it be. He's seen enough irreparable things to last for a lifetime now.)

“I still don't understand how they let you hold a gun," Jisung tells Chenle half an hour later after catching his breath, the comment sending everyone into another wave of laughter.

Chenle crashes on the couch by Jeno’s side, hiding his face between his hands. “I should have never shown you those pictures," he laments, as the rest of them laugh in full force, all of their bodies shaking enough to make the sofa vibrate.

It’s nice.

This is the kind of sound that Jisung wants to hear. His house is never quiet, air always filled with his parents voices, demanding, piercing, a constant reminder of tragedy. He doesn’t want silence though, he doesn’t want to trade the noise for the quiet, he’s never liked it, he's never chased it; Jisung prefers a world with sound, with melodies, a world with laughter even if it's deafening.

(This.

Right here, this moment.)

“You’re right, you shouldn’t have. But now it’s too late to regret it,” Donghyuck states from his place on the armrest, ruffling Chenle’s hair. When Chenle finally cracks a smile Donghyuck gets up, and Jisung immediately recognizes the beginning of an act. Donghyuck lowers his head a little and interlaces his fingers, a knowing smile on his face as if he's about to share them a secret. "Anyway, who wants to hear what I did last night?" he asks, excitement shining in his eyes, but Jaemin is quick to deflate him.

"You fucked some random guy, congratulations," he replies as he sits on a single sofa chair near Jisung's end of the couch. "It had been a while. Was he cuter than Mark, though?"

"What did Mark say when he saw you?" Chenle adds, not seeming to care about Donghyuck's question either.

Jisung glances to the armrest. His friend's wearing that familiar, sulky face that always comes out when he's being teased way beyond his liking, and when he meets his gaze Jisung hides behind his hands, trying to keep Donghyuck from noticing the laugh that's hanging off his lips, a second away from falling.

He fails, though, and he ends up being tickled on the neck, limbs flailing all over the couch as he fights for air and being pushed by both Jeno and Chenle, who are also trying to get Donghyuck to stop.

"Enough about Mark Lee!" Donghyuck exclaims when he's done torturing Jisung, now looking at all of them. "Ask me about the two cuties I got to kiss last night instead."

All of their mouths drop open.

"Two?!"

"So you did kiss Mark," Jisung teases, trying his luck again.

"Mark Lee is a canadian gremlin, I said cuties, alright?" Donghyuck looks away from him. "Jaemin, didn't you tell them?" he asks, pointing to his friend.

"Tell us what?"

"Nana here took my lips innocence away last night," Donghyuck announces, face as nonchalant as ever.

And then the entire room gasps.

Jisung could swear that even the light entering from outside flickers, before the walls start trembling with one word being blurted out in unison.

_"What?!"_

They all say that shouting, but Jisung notices —as he notices many things these days— that Jeno's voice sounds that tiny bit louder than the rest, just a tad more horrified, and when he looks at him he sees that Chenle is looking at him too, laughing, but also patting his knee with his hand.

The image is enough to take him a bit far from the rest of the scene, and as Donghyuck and Jaemin keep bickering around him like kids ("Why are you listening to this devil?" "Am I lying?" "Ugh, you sure loved it, maybe you should send a thank you card to that guy"), he thinks he notices another thing, the way Chenle is grabbing on his side, the hand that's not touching Jeno rubbing just a little beneath the ribcage.

But the sound returns loud and clear to his ears far too soon to let him dwell on that.

"Um, guys, care to explain?" Chenle is asking, cutting Donghyuck short of saying anything else. "We're losing our minds here."

Jisung sees how he steals a look at Jeno.

"Nothing," Jaemin says, sighing. "It's just that a guy last night was trying to approach me and I wasn't having it, so Hyuck here turned out to be a very useful tool."

Donghyuck gasps. "A tool?! And here I thought we had something special, Nana…"

His friends' back and forth is distracting enough to take everything else to the back of his mind, and as his gaze moves from one to the other as if watching a ping pong match, their loud words somehow lulling ("Shut up, oh my god," Jaemin is saying, "This is why Renjun is plotting to murder you"), he doesn't notice Chenle taking Jeno's spot on the couch by his side, not until a hot breath near his ear startles him.

"Is Jeno going to be alright?" Chenle asks in a whisper, but it's so sudden it makes Jisung jump.

It takes a couple of seconds for his heart rate to return to normal, and when he looks at his friend he has the impulse to hit him on the arm for causing that, but before he gets the chance to his mind processes the words, his gaze shifting to his other friend.

Jeno looks small. He's laid over the opposite arm rest, his eyes flickering between Donghyuck and Jaemin, the latter trying to kick Donghyuck since he keeps making silly kissy faces at him. His expression is hard to read, Jisung can’t decide if Jeno looks completely mortified or weirdly relieved, but he’s rooting for the second one.

“Yeah? Why wouldn't he?”

“You know,” Chenle whispers again, this time even lower, “because Jaemin…” He doesn’t finish what he’s saying, leaving Jaemin’s name out in the open.

Jisung holds onto it before it gets lost amongst the noise, feeling the air shifting a little.

His eyes search for his other friend now, and they arrive on him just on time to catch the way Jaemin's gaze falters a little when he crosses Jeno's, and the way Jeno looks away from Jaemin as if the sight of him burns.

And it's like a floodgate suddenly opens, because a flash of memories starts falling on him like a cascade. He thinks back at the silence that had taken over the place that morning, at the turmoil behind Jaemin's eyes when he had asked about Jeno, at the party a few days ago, at how Jeno had avoided Jaemin since the moment they had arrived.

The realization dawns on him without him noticing, and when he does, it feels like a puzzle piece finally finding its place on a big board. Like the whole world hadn't made sense up until that moment.

It's a Sunday morning, the sun is winning the battle against the clouds and filtering through the big windows of his friends apartment, grazing them with his golden rays one last time before winter takes over, and it's then that Jisung finally discovers one important, vital fact.

Falling in love is a kind of heartbreak in and of itself.

♖

  
It goes from pitch-black to blinding white.

One second is calm, a comfortable and dark vast ocean. The next is white noise, soreness climbing up through his back, something poking at his right side, a dry mouth and stiff hands.

After what it feels like an eternal moment, Renjun’s eyes finally decide to focus on Chenle, who’s looking at him with a mixed expression, hard to read.

“Did you sleep the whole day?” Chenle asks, and then Renjun feels another jab on his ribs. He slaps Chenle's hand away from his body and whines loudly.

_The whole day? No way._

He had been tired after another sleepless night, that's for sure; working on both his economy project and the painting for the exhibition in a couple of months had taken its toll on him. At the end of the day, or rather at the beginning, when the first rays of sun had been slipping through the blinds, he hadn't known what hurt the most, if his hands or his head.

What he knew was that he needed to sleep. At that point he deserved it, a deep moment of rest, and after pressing "Save document" on his computer he knew what he had to do to get it.

A moment, that was it. Definitely not a whole day.

"Hyung," Chenle insists.

Renjun stretches his arms, his hands going under the cushions where he remembers he dropped his phone last night. He finds nothing though, and after faintly looking around he locates the device over the table, right beside his water bottle. Just the idea of getting up to grab it makes him feel dizzy, and he just whines under chenle’s shameless scrutiny.

“What time is it?” he asks, and he gets surprised by how groggy his own voice sounds.

“Almost 7pm.”

“Shit.” _It can’t be._ He’s sure that he fell asleep some time after Chenle left the apartment for the piano lessons, and that was around 9am, which meant he had been sleeping for almost… ten hours.

Renjun grimaces, that explains the dry taste of his mouth and the void he feels at his stomach, filled with nothing but a creeping sense of guiltiness.

He glances at Chenle, who’s wearing a jacket, even though it’s warm inside, and he notices he’s got his backpack on. “Did you go somewhere else after practice?”

“Jaemin and Jeno’s. We were there for most of the day, the five of us.” Chenle drops the backpack on the floor, right beside the table. "I came home after practising to get changed though. I would have woken you up if I didn't know that you spent the whole night studying, again."

“Oh." there's a pinch of criticism in Chenle's voice, and Renjun knows he deserves it, especially in this occasion, but they've been there too many times so Renjun chooses to ignore it.

Chenle in the end does too, apparently.

"In fact I just said goodbye to Donghyuck hyung."

"What? Like here?" His mind is still too hazy to understand, but when Chenle nods he vaguely remembers that Donghyuck had left his car there before going out last night. He shakes his head (wincing when he feels it ache) and sighs. "Ah, the manners these days, not even coming up to say hi…"

"I think he just wanted to go back home and sulk, hyung, don't take it personal."

_Sulk for what?_ he almost asks, just before remembering that his friend doesn't need many reasons to sulk on a daily basis.

"Anyway, what did I miss?” he asks instead, getting up slowly.

Chenle tilts his head playfully.

"Not much... You know just Jaemin hyung and Donghyuck hyung telling us about their kiss... And Donghyuck meeting Mark Lee.... The usual."

_What?_

Renjun almost trips with Chenle’s bag and the younger starts laughing immediately. He doesn’t have time to try to kick his friend because his mind is trying to process all the words he just heard.

Jaemin. Donghyuck. Kiss.

_What the fuck?_

Renjun would have expected Jaemin to kiss every single pretty boy in seoul before kissing Donghyuck. And if he had to kiss any of their friends, Renjun would have expected Jaemin to kiss Jeno first, that would at least make some kind of sense.

Maybe Jaemin was being held at gunpoint and the only way to survive was kissing Donghyuck.

That sounds like a possible explanation.

What couldn't possibly have a good explanation is Donghyuck meeting Mark Lee again, but given some very disturbing memories involving a pool and a lot of curses from his friend for the months that came he decides he doesn’t want nor need any more information on that subject, at least for the time being.

_That explains why he's sulking though,_ he thinks, as an afterthought.

“The one time I fall asleep and you guys…” A sigh leaves his mouth as he feels the headache coming back. “Anyway, I'm too old for this.”

“You're literally not.”

“Yeah, well, my head literally hurts and i feel like dying so that's old enough for me.”

“How did you sleep so much anyway?”

It’s not the question what makes Renjun flinch.

It's the answer. The answer than Renjun knows too well, the answer that he's too afraid and embarrassed to let his friends find out about, the answer that lies inside a tiny white bottle that rests inside his drawer.

"I don't know…” he lies. If Chenle catches the deceivement in his voice, he lets it get lost between them. Renjun can feel his friend’s eyes on him though, trying to see beyond the unspoken words, pulling at the thin thread that’s holding Renjun’s lie together.

He can't let it break.

Renjun grabs his phone and gets up.

“I had a pretty intense week though. I needed to finish two different projects, and they weren’t exactly easy.”

That’s true, at least. He _has_ put a lot of time into that. After all, high grades means pleased parents and pleased parents means getting to do what he really wants, even if it takes a bit of his sanity in the process.

“Double majoring is going to kill you someday, hyung," Chenle says, nonchalantly, stepping into his bedroom seconds after.

_I think it's starting to_, he doesn’t say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (if you have any question regarding the plot, the new tags or anything in particular you can leave us a comment or @ at twitter -[viccxes](https://twitter.com/markvhyun) [sunshyun](https://twitter.com/hyuckIy)-)


	5. spark (stay deep red)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloooo there, we made it on time!! *cheers* 
> 
> please don't skip this! (especially points 2 and 4)
> 
> 1\. we already talked about this in the last notes, but this chapter has been Hell to write, honestly. we were so busy and uninspired it took us nearly 2 months, but anyway. here it is!! and we're pretty satisfied with it after all uwu
> 
> 2\. WARNINGS for this chapter:  
\- mention of drug use/drug abuse (not for any of the dreamies tho! but it's worth pointing out)  
\- again, loss of a family member (mentioned)
> 
> 3\. we want to say a HUUUGE thanks to our friend bea (@healsvt, go read her [nomin masterpiece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797736) if u haven't) for betaing this for us (*´˘`*)♡ bea, you helped us so much and gave us a lot of confidence and we love you 
> 
> 4\. in regards to the last point, we're in need of a beta. we know we're asking for your time and effort for free, but in case you can and want to do it we would appreciate it /so much/. we try to take care of everything by ourselves, but we're also pretty inexperienced, so there are a lot of things that slip past us. please if you're interested talk to us on twitter! (we're friendly, i promise)
> 
> 5\. we make moodboards for every chapter!! you can find all of them under [this tweet](https://twitter.com/markvhyun/status/1165663146620706816) (and [this](https://twitter.com/hyuckIy/status/1197639755653140481) is the one for this chapter) ♡
> 
> okay, that's all. enjoy!!!

v.

They don't live in a quiet place.

Seoul is vibrant, full of life and sounds. Its music gets to you even if you don't want it to, like an overplayed song on the radio. 

Jeno can hear the racket in the streets, cars unnecessarily speeding up on a saturday morning, like so many other mornings, the sun peeking through the blinds and giving everything a warm orangey colour, tiny dots of specs floating in the air. He's sitting on the couch, the one that he and Jaemin picked, a long dark grey couch that's so much softer than it looks. 

Jaemin is sitting right next to him, like so many other times. 

And also unlike any other.

Jeno can’t stop thinking about how funny, twisted and sad the situation is. He’s carefully recollecting all the memories that they’ve made in that single space, from the nights spent playing dumb video games to the fake wrestling that followed every time Jaemin cheated, from every movie they’ve watched together going through every happy and sad ending, through every bittersweet one as well.

(It didn’t really matter how the movie ended.)

There had been many different scenarios on that couch, and Jeno won’t lie, his mind would sometimes wander a bit further, crossing between universes, endless possibilities. And that’s why it’s funny, and twisted, and sad, because getting his heart broken on a saturday morning had never been an option, and the fabric feels foreign under his thighs.

"Why," Jeno starts, and for a moment the words get caught up in a burning knot in his throat. He swallows it, just like he would like to swallow the uncertainty in Jaemin's eyes. "Why would I joke about this?"

He would never joke about this, never. Jaemin should have known, Jaemin should have understood how hard it was for him, how groundbreaking, how scary. Jeno is completely frightened, so why is it that Jaemin isn't making him feel better?

He likes boys. He said it out loud. It's real, it's part of him, it will always be. So why does Na Jaemin think it is a fucking joke?

"Because it's you," Jaemin says. For some reason he doesn't sound like Jaemin, but it's his voice somehow, his lips moving, his expression looking as if Jeno had just slapped him. "It's you, Jeno, it doesn’t make any sense at all."

_Please,_ Jeno thinks, begs, _please don't say another word._

-

"Please" Jaemin pleads, "Please Jeno, talk to me."

Seoul is vibrant, full of life and sounds even at night, but the moment their friends leave the apartment gets drowned in a cold icy silence. Jeno welcomes it, because silence can be lonely but at least it doesn’t hurt as much as Jaemin’s words.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Jeno says, and it’s not a lie, but it’s also not the truth. It’s not that he doesn’t have anything to say to Jaemin, it’s more like there are so many things, so many feelings, so many thoughts and none of them merge into the right words for him to say.

He mostly just wants to scream.

“But I do,” Jaemin whispers, and then he clears his throat. The sound traps Jeno’s attention and his eyes land subconsciously on Jaemin’s neck, where there are still some faltering visible Marks from the party at Yukhei's on friday. “Yesterday, I shouldn’t have reacted like that, I know. I'm really sorry if I made you believe that your feelings were not valid. They are, and I'm glad you told me.”

Jeno’s focus should be on Jaemin’s words and not on the light purple skin patches across his neck, going down his collarbones and disappearing under his shirt. His eyes travel to Jaemin’s lips and he thinks about how easy it is for him to go around kissing boys like nothing’s at stake, how natural it must have felt for him last night to close the gap between his lips and Donghyuck’s.

“However, I—” Jaemin tries to speak again.

“Jaemin, stop. Please.”

“We should talk about it, you know.”

Jeno bites back a laugh. The whole situation is so ironic, and so sweet. Jaemin clearly feels bad about what he did, and he’s now trying to fix it. He’s being sincere, Jeno can feel it, after so many years, it’s so easy for him to tell that Jaemin’s feelings are real, that he genuinely means every word. It’s just another perfect example of why their friendship is so strong, because they always care about each other, they always put each other first, and they can understand each other with just one look.

Or at least, they usually do. They did. Either way, it’s not enough now.

It hasn’t been enough for months.

“I know, but could you give me some time? I don’t— I thought I was ready yesterday, but with everything that happened, I'm not so sure now. I promise you we’ll talk, just, not now, not tonight.”

Not tonight.

Tonight Jeno won’t have a conversation with Jaemin, but with himself, and it will be the exact same conversation that had been taking place inside his head for the past few months, the one where a panicked and scared part of him will say that he loves Jaemin as a friend, while a different voice that sounds so much like his own will scream that he wants to kiss him.

He wants to erase Donghyuck’s lips from Jaemin’s, and every other boy that came before him.

“I'm here for you, like I always have, you know that, right?” Jaemin takes a step back, giving Jeno the space that he asked for, the space Jeno thought he wanted, the space he felt he needed, the space he doesn’t seem to be able to take because when Jaemin takes that step back Jeno’s hands prickle, his whole body hurts and before he can act or do anything about it Jaemin is shooting an arrow through his heart with his next words. “You’re my best friend.”

Needless to say, it hits bullseye.

“Yeah,” he answers quietly, crumbling down, screaming inside.

_That’s the problem._

Everything’s quiet.

♖

Thursday afternoons used to be Donghyuck's favorites.

Thursday afternoons used to be filled with the golden lights of an amphitheater shining above his head and the sound of his voice spreading loudly and velvety through every corner, blending with those of the other kids from his drama classes as they sang their way through every song from every classic musical to the most recent ones, including films, Donghyuck making sure to put on a great performance, even if it wasn’t needed. Thursday afternoons had him thinking about what Mr. Kim had explained to the class during second period, every juicy detail of modern drama history worth the attention that he paid during those lessons - he genuinely loved that class, and it had nothing to do with how young and attractive Mr. Kim was.

Overall, Thursday afternoons used to carry within themselves the sound of wind chimes in the air and a twinkling feeling in his chest. Passion, maybe. 

He remembers saying something along the lines of “I'm going to be an actor” to Mark once, when they had first met each other during summer more than a year ago. They had clashed at first, as it was expected, a blazing hurricane trying to embrace a chilly summer breeze; Mark never reacted to Donghyuck's jokes the way he wanted him to, and Donghyuck made teasing Mark a habit that made the boy's ears turn red, but they had eventually found those ripples in time when they could just be Donghyuck and Mark, the sun and fresh air. 

“Not like my parents though,” he had mumbled one afternoon, the sun setting, the air gold, Mark’s thighs under his head, “I want to do musicals.”

"Then why won’t you let me hear you sing?”

“That’s reserved for people I really like, Mark hyung," he had teased.

But that was back then, because this Thursday afternoon has Donghyuck skipping Mr. Lee's class, his professor's instructions on how to properly project his voice like a long forgotten echo in his head, and whereas once he had summer within an inch of his fingertips, he’s now staring at it through a glass, surrounded by nothing except fall, winter whispering its call between moments in the wind. 

Yesterday, he learned that Mark Lee works in an old coffee shop.

Today, even if he can feel cold creeping up his spine, the sight of the vintage-looking place in front of him is a little comforting. He can see low lighting and big windows, plants hanging everywhere like they have no clue that somewhere near them everything else is withering, and something about the aura of the place radiates with the same glow of sunset polaroids and the stillness of time, not at all tampered by the faded painting on the walls. It's actually the kind of place Donghyuck loves. Romantic, old, cozy. Warm, like the big silly grin plastered on Mark's face as he watches him take orders, completely unaware of his presence.

It makes his skin tingle, but at least the café is surprisingly —and very conveniently— close to Seoul University, meaning that in case he needs any emotional support after seeing Mark Lee in a cute pastel pink apron and glasses _again_ (Donghyuck groans, those glasses are going to be the death of him) he could always call Jeno, Jaemin, Renjun or Jisung. Maybe all of them.

“Okay, we’re doing this,” Donghyuck mutters under his breath.

He tightens his grip on the bag he’s holding and pushes the door, going in.

-

He should have expected the bells, ringing softly but loud enough to warn the staff that they have a new client. He feels it before he sees it, but Mark’s eyes are on him the second he sets foot into the establishment, his grin not even faltering for a second, a staggering contrast to the way Donghyuck can feel his heart skip a beat, and for a split moment he freezes, tangled between wanting to smile back and keeping the facade he's worked on so hard for the past year, the facade that Mark somehow managed to shake the other day.

But Mark's voice sets the world again into motion.

“Donghyuck?” he calls. 

“Hi, Lee,” he immediately says, and it should come out a lot drier than it does, so he clears his throat and tries to walk as casually as he can towards the other boy, eyes wandering through the store and its plants, the tiny light bulbs hanging from the wall, the different cake slices displayed on a freezer; everywhere but Mark.

“What are you doing here?” Mark asks.

Even though Donghyuck isn’t looking at him, he knows that Mark’s smiling, he can hear it. After all, he knows Mark’s voice well. He’s dreamt of it more than a couple of times. There was even a short period of time when he longed for the sound of it, wanting to hear it and replay it again and again, like it was his favorite song; a summer when Donghyuck learned how Mark’s voice sounds when he smiles, when he’s sad, when he’s drunk. 

When he’s out of breath.

He drops the thought before it can do something to him.

“Your brother gave me the address, so.” 

Johnny had been the first person to come to Donghyuck's mind on Monday, when he had seen the shirt and pants Mark had lended him lying on the sofa of his bedroom like a sweet and poisonous reminder that he owed Mark Lee a favor. Of course, he couldn't go back to his apartment, it would only make him feel dumb and embarrassing and all of the things he absolutely _isn't_, so Johnny's name had lit up like a candle in his head, a single name in the middle of darkness and the bright possibility to maintain some of the little dignity he had left. That was until yesterday, when Johnny's words had fallen on him like a relentless downpour.

_"I'm sorry man, but I'm out of town for a couple of weeks."_

The candle had blown off, but as he stood in the darkness, unsure of what to do, Johnny had opened up a little window in the form of Mark's work address. 

It was better, anything was better than going back to his apartment. 

“Here are your clothes, they're clean.”

He's still trying to keep his eyes off him as he hands Mark the bag, at least far from his own gaze, but a high pitched "Oh!" that escapes Mark's lips makes him look up. 

He briefly catches Mark’s surprised expression, eyes getting even bigger during a second, and even though it all catches him off guard and leaves him confused, for the first time in what feels like forever Donghyuck doesn’t see red when he looks at him, doesn’t see the car lights reflected on the asphalt puddles as he walks away from Jaemin’s apartment, doesn’t see the shape of his own tears on the street moments later, doesn’t see the sky bleeding out into a summer night.

He just sees Mark, in a cute pastel pink apron, with a tag with his name on it, a simple outfit underneath. It’s just Mark Lee, in a coffee shop, the smell of chocolate and vanilla and honey around them, a Christmas pop song coming out of the radio and multiple people enjoying their Thursday afternoon with a warm cup of coffee washing winter off their hands.

“Thank you,” Mark smiles, and Donghyuck swallows.

“You're welcome,” he concedes, looking away as he internally curses himself for letting his facade tremble once more. “See you around.”

He turns on his feet to try and get the hell out of the café as quickly as possible, and he’s mentally preparing himself for going back into the cold winter streets when summer grabs him by the arm.

“W—wait,” Mark sounds as surprised as Donghyuck is as he looks back at him, but the glint in his eyes doesn’t prepare Donghyuck for what's coming. “Don't you want coffee? It's on the house.”

His words seem to carry a certain echo, because the song ends, the people murmur as the first notes of a new song start playing, and Mark's words sound like an invitation for coffee and like so much more than that. It sounds like the ringing of the bells, a door opening, the swift autumn breeze blowing all the way through the entrance to the back of his neck, brushing against it softly as Mark's grip on his arm is still lighting embers throughout his whole body. It sounds like a way in. Into what, he doesn't know. And he's not sure if he's ready to find out.

Without thinking about it, he moves his arm away from Mark's hold. It feels cold. The shadow that passes through Mark's gaze for a split second feels even colder. 

"Um, I have somewhere to be?" he says, and it's partially true; his mother had called him earlier to ask if they could meet without his father present, but Donghyuck is still pondering whether to go or not. Mark doesn't need to know that, though.

"Oh. Not even ten minutes?"

His expression is tainted with something akin to disappointment, and Donghyuck doesn't get it. 

(_"He's a bit too much."_

Those had been his words. Donghyuck had heard him crystal clear, loud as if he had been sticking his head out of the water after a very long time. And maybe he had. Maybe he had clung too much to that kiss in the pool, maybe his mind had stayed underwater, sweetly drowning in the intimacy of the memory until Mark's words had pulled him out. 

Then why, _why is he inviting me in again._)

"Didn't you have enough of me last time?"

He's not sure if he's referring to the other morning in the apartment or way, way before that, but Mark's look is enough to bring him back to the present. 

It's the way his eyes soften at the edges and an exhale leaves his lips. It's the way his shoulders deflate and the tired expression on his face, the purple-ish tone of the skin under his eyes, not as pronounced as Renjun's, but still visible. Maybe it's his hand, clenching around his apron as if now that it's not touching Donghyuck it feels empty and unsure.

It makes the prickling feeling in his gut that he's come to associate with Mark Lee subside, fade like smudged ink on a paper. 

"I just want to ask if everything's okay."

(Maybe it's his words too, these new ones. So similar to what Donghyuck himself had asked all that time ago and so different to the ones that had come out of Mark's mouth that afternoon, scarring and wrong.)

He can feel the air shifting. It makes him wonder what else is. 

"Why, Lee? You don't have to try to make conversation with me, you know. I thought I made clear that I don't expect you to be nice."

For instance, at least his tone is shifting. He went for defensive —because that's what he is, because his words are the exact opposite of what he'd like to say and he doesn’t have within himself the tools to allow that—, but instead they came out teasing, only the tiniest bit of bite present which sounds more like a challenge than an accusation, and Mark lights up at that.

Of course, Mark Lee; always up for a challenge. 

"And I thought we agreed that I _am_ nice, and you're a bit difficult."

He accentuates that statement with a smirk, and it's disarming. It's disarming and he hates him a little for it, but he hates himself more because he's not strong enough to keep the corners of his mouth from lifting up in response.

"Huh. Well, you're surely doing a fine job to make me believe it." 

If he were a house of cards, then Mark Lee would definitely be the blizzard that makes it waver, because as he says that he realizes

it is _not_ a lie.

And the way Mark's eyes gleam like sunbeams doesn't really help Donghyuck's case, especially not through those stupid round glasses.

"But anyway, Lee, it's all good," he adds, and it sounds a little rushed, much like his own pulse. 

He needs to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

"You're a very bad liar," Mark replies, calm and a little amused, before his gaze softens. "But okay, I won't push it."

"Thanks," he says, a traitorous smirk playing on his lips, and as he's about to let himself think that maybe, _maybe_ he wouldn't mind staying, his next words are already running out of his mouth. "I really have to get going, though."

Mark still doesn’t look completely satisfied with his answer, but this time he only nods slightly at Donghyuck’s words. His eyes wander past him for a very brief moment, towards the door, Seoul’s dying fall days right behind it, before they’re back on Donghyuck, their eyes locked, almost black meeting dark brown.

“Okay, Hyuck— Donghyuck,” Mark corrects himself. Donghyuck's chest swells. “I guess... see you around?”

He doesn't hesitate when he nods and murmurs a quiet, “Yeah, see you around", and Mark smiles widely then, his eyes shining, his cheekbones standing out even more, and Donghyuck can’t fight his own voice at the back of his mind saying that Mark Lee is beautiful, always has been. 

He raises his left hand to his own face, fingertips grazing the skin below his eyes. “Hopefully you'll be wearing less of these by then.”

Mark laughs, and he brings his hand to his eyebags in a way that says that he’s very aware of their existence.

“I hope so too.”

Donghyuck finally turns to leave, but when his hand is already on the door knob, when he can almost feel the cold winter welcoming him back and the pop song playing on the radio merges with the sound of cars speeding up, he realizes his heart stayed behind him with a very serious question echoing through it.

“What about the cat?” he blurts out, head turned just enough to catch sight of Mark, who hasn’t moved an inch from where they had been talking.

Mark tilts his head, eyebrows darting up. "Um?"

“The cat I scared,” Donghyuck helps. “Did it come back?”

Mark's confusion merges into realization, and he giggles, shy but loud.

“Oh, yeah! I told you he always does that."

“I'm glad, Mark," he says, sincerely.

It may be because Thursday afternoons used to be his favourites, or maybe because everything about this place seems to wrap around him like a warm coat, but as he finally opens the door to leave, hearing the faint echo of a laugh that sounds too much like wind chimes and feeling the upcoming winter breeze passing him by, he thinks that Mark's name on his tongue might not taste as bitter anymore.

♖

“Why do you always do that?” 

Chenle asks under an odd sky, grey and golden hanging in the humid air. He doesn’t know exactly what makes it so unusual, if it’s something about the dark clouds following the wind’s trail while the sun shines faintly between them, dying, or if it’s maybe not the world but just them.

(There is something wrong, he’s aware, since last summer, or maybe even before that. Rain gave Seoul a truce a moment ago but Chenle feels like the storm hasn’t really reached his group of friends yet.

And it’s so, so unfair.)

Jisung doesn’t answer his question. Instead he steps into another tiny puddle.

It had been raining when Chenle arrived to the Natural Sciences College building five minutes before the end of Jisung’s last Friday lesson, and just like the palette in the sky, the students exiting the building were also a weird mix. Chenle could recognize the determination, rock-hard on their faces, grey and overcast, in those who were headed to their dorms with the sole intention of getting a couple of hours of study before hitting the bed, and the lack of fear, glinting golden, in those whose destination was the city —Hongdae possibly, Itaewon maybe—, textbooks long forgotten at the bottom of their backpacks until Sunday morning.

Among them, there's Jisung, but he is nowhere near any of those colors. 

The first time they met it had been raining too. It was a Saturday afternoon, the smell of petrichor and damp grass still dancing in the air, the clouds splitting open to give way to the few scattered beams of sunlight that tried to break through them and offer their last goodbye before the night fell upon them, and Chenle, staring at his feet as he sat on the floor of the balcony, was feeling more alone than ever. His family had arrived to Korea only a couple of months before, and even though his parents seemed to be merging well enough with those serious, tailored-suit people ("_b__usiness men and women_", his father had told him), those fancy social events they were obliged to attend ("_It's important that these people trust us, son_") were Chenle's biggest nightmare. None of the kids seemed to want to play with the quiet Chinese kid, and Chenle couldn't understand anything they said either. He could read looks just fine though, and he didn't need anything else to know he didn't want to be friends with them anyway.

That was, until a boy just as tiny as him had peeked at his spot, a black mop of hair sticking out from behind a wall giving away a pair of small eyes, wide open and staring in his direction. 

It's a funny story, now that he thinks about it.

("I'm Chinese, not an alien!" Chenle had protested, even though he knew the kid wouldn't understand a word he was saying. He just wanted to be left alone, clutching his legs against his stomach and trying to make himself as small as possible.

The boy opened his mouth in horror and disappeared, and Chenle felt a sense of victory for the first time since he had arrived in that cruel, unfamiliar country. However, it didn't last long. 

Less than a minute later the boy made an appearance again, except that time he stepped out from his hiding place, and started walking towards him. 

Chenle was about to protest again when the boy pointed with his finger at somewhere behind him. And right then, on a rainy day, as cold crept up his spine and his fists were clenched in a mix of anger, fear and sadness, he turned around and saw that the sky was now dressed in shades of pink and purple, and hanging in the middle of it, was a rainbow. It looked like a colossal bridge of colors, big enough to connect this world to the next, maybe large enough to take him back home. 

He sensed the boy sitting down next to him, and they stayed there in silence, engraving the sight into memory as they watched it fade away, like time was relapsing and the spilled painting was able to disappear and bring the sky back to its original, limpid state in only an instant. It was the most dazzling thing he had witnessed in his five years of life, powerful enough to make the feeling in his innards change shape, from a surging storm only moments ago, to a quiescent stream where the sun could shine upon. 

Afterwards, as he turned towards the boy again, his hands now stretched and free, it could have been the effect of the light still printed on his retinas —it probably was—, but the kid smiled at him and in his eyes he could see the unmistakable flashes of a prism.

"Park Jisung," the boy had said, sheepishly pointing his thumbs towards himself.

It was the last time Chenle had ever felt alone.)

It's been many years and many more stories from that; Jisung and Chenle had later transformed into Jisung, Chenle and Renjun, and not long after that Donghyuck, Jaemin and Jeno had joined along too, and the quiet Chinese boy had turned out not to be so quiet, and many things had changed, but as he watches Jisung step into the third puddle in a row, completely unaware of Chenle's question, he still sees a flare of diaphanous iridescent when a single sunbeam catches on his hair.

That's Jisung's color, a mix of all of them. 

"Sorry, did you say anything?” Jisung asks once he starts walking by Chenle’s side again, a concerned look on his face and his left shoe not as dry as five minutes ago.

Chenle feels warmth bloom all over his chest.

“I said you’re ugly,” he jokes, a laugh escaping through his lips when Jisung gives him a fake angry look. 

“Where are we going?” 

“I don’t know. Everything’s wet, so we can’t sit on the grass.”

_As usual_, Chenle doesn't say. Because it’s not the first time that he has surprised his friend after his classes ended, and they always end up sitting on the grass under the sun or the street lamps, chatting about things that don’t really matter, and things that do. That option is not available today, and although they got plenty of others —the cafeteria, the campus bar, Renjun and Chenle’s apartment— Jisung doesn’t say anything, and neither does Chenle, because he doesn’t care about /where/, he cares about _with who_, and unlike himself, Jisung is always a right answer.

The younger is about to say something when his phone starts ringing. 

Chenle recognizes the tone that Jisung has chosen for his mother's calls and he immediately slows down, giving Jisung the space he might need to talk with his mom comfortably. When he sees him putting the phone away just a couple of minutes later, he picks up his pace again. 

They’re getting shorter, the phone calls, and there are also less of them. The first weeks after Jisung’s brother's death the phone calls had been constant, a desperate and continued _where are you, who are you with, what are you doing and when are you coming back home_.

Jisung didn’t complain, not even once. There are quite a mountain worth of things Chenle admires about his friend, but standing at the peak of it, it's probably that ability of his not to lose himself even during the hardest times.

Jisung may be a scaredy cat when it comes to rollercoasters, the most annoying screamer in a fake haunted house, and may make a shield of all of them to hide behind when meeting strangers, but Jisung is always strong, always pure when it matters, and the truth of the matter is that Chenle hasn't felt that strong, much less pure, lately, and maybe that's why these days he prefers asking questions rather than telling or giving answers.

When they’re walking side by side again, Chenle brushes his shoulder with Jisung's, in a gesture so harsh some might think he’s tripped and crashed against him, but his friend knows best, and he just shrugs and gives Chenle a shy smile again.

“How's your mom?” Chenle asks.

Jisung fumbles with the straps of his bag before answering. "Better, I think. The other day I came back from training pretty late and I only had one missed phone call instead of the usual twenty."

"I told you she was gonna lay off after a while."

At least, he had hoped she would. 

Jisung's mother is not a crazy person, not really. Jisung always says she's damaged, broken beyond repair, and so is his father, but Chenle doesn't like to think so. Despite the things he had never understood (that time when he and Jisung had found her on accident sitting on the bed and tearing up as she went through old family photos; the difficult relationship she had with Jiwoon, Jisung's brother; the way she never seemed to find her voice when they were in the same room, as if despite sharing the same space there was an irremediable distance between them that couldn't be filled with words) Chenle knew one thing: Mrs. Park had always taken care of them, and he liked to believe that the person who had chosen to play hide and seek with them instead of sending them to sleep, the person who had read the same part of Peter Pan over and over at their request without batting an eyelash, had to be somewhere still, waiting to come back.

If Jisung couldn't believe it, then Chenle had to believe it for both of them. At least, a shorter number of phone calls meant a step in the right direction, a sign that Mrs. Park could go back to the person she'd always been, and that the burden on Jisung's shoulders was getting lighter day by day. 

"Yeah, I guess…" Jisung ponders, eyeing him for a moment before deciding to reach out and fix his hair. Chenle has come to learn that it's a gesture Jisung does more for himself than for Chenle, but he's okay with that. He doesn't say anything as Jisung continues, "Still makes me feel a little guilty though, you know, worrying her."

Chenle breathes out. He does know, but he doesn't like it. "She has to learn to live with it, Ji, you all have."

"I know, hyung... But it hasn't been a year yet, and people are still talking about it." 

Jisung says it casually, almost resigned, but the second the words roll out of his mouth Chenle can feel the tips of his fingers prickle. He wants to ask,_ who_, who is still talking about it; he wants to say _none of those people should be allowed to talk about it_, but he doesn't get a chance to. 

As if on cue, a group of three guys walks near them, and while Jisung doesn't seem to pay them much attention, Chenle can't help but notice the spiteful glint in their gazes, the sardonic aura of their smiles; instinctively, he reaches for Jisung's wrist, pulling him closer, just in time as one of the guys opens his mouth and spits venom.

"How much for 20 bucks?" 

The three of them are laughing, and it takes less than a second for Chenle to understand what they mean, to notice Jisung's steps accelerating and realize that Jisung didn't have to think about the implications because he's already used to it. 

The thought makes his skin burn in a way that it's both familiar and foreign, recent enough to recognize it, overall new for him to be accustomed to it, but it doesn't matter.

Jisung is making use of the hold Chenle has on his wrist to tug at him, get him to keep walking, head down in a clear attempt to ignore the three figures that are closing in on them. Subconsciously, Chenle knows that they're not going to physically stop them from going; for instance, that would catch too much the attention from the occasional bystanders and the rest of students still on campus, and apart from that, he knows that if that was their goal, they would have already created a barrier in front of them. 

He knows they could just go, he knows that's what Jisung wants to do.

But then. 

"What? Aren't you continuing your big brother's legacy? A family of junkies?"

Their laughter sounds like sirens, loud, provoking, piercing, and before he catches up to his own will, his fingers are letting go of Jisung, both of his hands clenching into fists because how the fuck _dare_ they.

His vision becomes red, and the sight of the boys in front of him gets distorted with a mix of flashes. Jisung, crashing through his door and against his chest; the piano; a fist slamming into his stomach; Jiwoon, closing the door on them; Jisung's voice, cracked and barely above a whisper, _"They found him on the floor"_.

He can feel a rush running through his body at light-speed, hot and all-consuming, and that in itself is a flashback too. 

Jisung isn't reacting, but Chenle… he has reacted for way less than that before. 

He takes a step forward, barely registering the shift in the guys' faces from their mocking smiles to slight shock as he raises his fist, feeling it burn with a desperate need of release and ready to bump into one of the guys' jaw.

It doesn’t happen.

Still, there is a collision, a hand tightly gripped around his wrist, and a voice.

The only voice that could ever ground him.

“Chenle!”

His own name had never sounded so foreign, used as a warning, although Jisung’s tone is filled with determination mixed with what Chenle recognizes as pure disbelief. The grip on his wrist gets lighter, Jisung’s fingers almost caressing it, and the world simmers down to a blazing orange in Chenle's eyes until he catches the three figures leaving from the corner of his eyes, taking advantage of the distraction to scurry away.

Chenle’s rage fires up again only to be drowned immediately by Jisung’s voice forcing him to look into his eyes.

"Hyung! It’s not worth it,“ he stammers, voice a bit shaken, and Chenle hates himself for that. ”It’s not worth it,“ he repeats, ”you're better than this." 

Jisung looks clearly worried and disturbed, his fingers are quavering a little where they are trying to entangle between his to make the knot that is his hand unravel, but his eyes are staring into his with an intensity reserved only for the eye of a storm, and it makes sense, for the storm is now Chenle himself. 

Chenle's breathing is heavy as he stares back, keeping hold of the look on his friend's eyes and hearing his words running through his mind like a deafening echo. 

_You're better than this you're better than this you're better than this._

_I'm not,_ he wants to say, but instead he just lets Jisung's fingers disentangle his fists, completely aware of the way they still tingle under his skin. 

_I'm not._

♖

Life was easy when Jaemin was five years old.

Back then, his purposes in life could be narrowed down to two: holding his grandma's hand on his way back from kindergarten and to his grandparents' house, and just as important as the first one, making Jeno laugh every chance he could get. 

The walk from kindergarten to his grandparents' house was easy, it only took a few blocks and a few turns to get there, and he had his grandma's secure hold on his hand at all times. In summer, the sun would shine upon them, making friends with the trees to trade the warm touch of its fingers for the free passage between their leaves, and it would draw shadows in both the sidewalks and his and his grandma's skin, tainting their cheeks red as she made up a new story for him every afternoon. At the house, a milkshake would be waiting for him at the wrought iron table to match with his grandpa's coffee cup, and once they arrived he would dash to the backyard, as fast as a summer breeze, greeting roses and daisies and lavenders, and he would sit there, feeling like an adult as he and his grandpa read the newspaper together. 

They were simple afternoons, an even simpler life.

And at night, when the moon hung lonely and unreachable, it was easy not to wish his parents were home when he had Jeno by his side, just one bed away and ready to crinkle his small eyes and laugh at anything Jaemin said. Even the first time Jeno had climbed onto his bed, quietly and without explanation but with eyes a little hooded and mouth shut tight, it had only taken a "One day I want a cute samoyedo like you to cuddle" and a little kiss on his hair to make him giggle, and as Jaemin made space for Jeno on his bed, watching Jeno curl up against his side, feeling his chest fuzzy with contempt and his eyes heavy with sleep, he had realized that falling asleep next to his best friend was easy too. 

He’s about to cross the line between dreams and reality, hearing the faint echo of Jeno's laughter from a lifetime ago in the back of his mind, when the mattress sinks.

It’s Sunday night, probably the quietest time of the week in a sleepless city like Seoul, and this time the moon is his only company.

There’s a long list filled with reasons why Jaemin should have been asleep in that exact moment, why he shouldn’t have felt the change of the mattress under him, —it had been a long week, with Donghyuck demanding to spend time together and constantly whining about how messy their last weekend had been, his parents trying to get him to open up about what's "gotten him into a bad mood lately" during their dinner together on wednesday, irresponsible project partners that kept making his attempt at getting high grades miserable and Jeno constantly avoiding him in a not so subtle way.

He's also been losing sleep this past few days over reading Dream of the Red Chamber, writing an essay about it and the different themes it depicts and studying for three different exams. Jeno visibly flinching every time they happened to be in the same room —which, to be fair, happened quite frequently since they live together—, measuring every word he says and staying out until too late even during weekdays was the last of the things that Jaemin needed.

"I promise you we’ll talk, just, not now, not tonight,” Jeno had said.

And not tonight had turned into not tomorrow, not the day after it, not even a whole week later.

It’s Sunday night and Jaemin crawls into bed after putting an end to his essay. Jeno hasn’t come home yet, Donghyuck sent him a text earlier letting him know that they were having a few drinks at his apartment ("I'd rather have him here drinking with me than getting wasted somewhere else," had been Donghyuck's reply after Jaemin scolded him for letting Jeno drink), so he lies awake for a while, listening to some music and watching some videos without his headphones on, allowing himself to do some silly online tests without posting any of the results. He actually almost cries with a couple of songs.

Sleep finally comes find him some time later, when his mind is tired of going through the same what ifs and the same maybes as every other night; they are starting to feel like the stories his grandma used to tell him, except they don't leave such a sweet, bright feeling in his chest, and he’s glad he already shed a fair amount of tears in the shower earlier so he doesn’t have to deal now with a soaked pillow and a running nose. It’s hard, these days, to keep functioning as if his whole world hadn’t came crumbling down just a week ago, as if he doesn’t want to scream all the time because he loves Jeno and Jeno isn’t even looking at him, because he’s in love with Jeno and Jeno said they’ll talk but they still haven’t.

He's navigating that thin line between being awake and asleep when the mattress sinks and the world stops as Jeno climbs, unannounced, onto Jaemin’s bed.

His heart is racing as he turns around, and for a second he fears it might be a dream, a product of his mind getting too caught up in that old memory and deceiving him, but then the answer comes in the form of the faint smell of alcohol mixed with coconut, the fragrance of that soap Jeno has used forever and that makes Jaemin's head spin, and he realizes this is real.

He's not sure what scares him most.

Jeno has his eyes closed, his hair disheveled, black strands painting shadows against the pillow and over his brow; he's wearing the same shirt he'd had on that morning, now slightly rolled up against the mattress and revealing a small patch of skin right where his hip meets the curve of his jeans, and he is breathing in long, slow intakes. 

He looks fairly peaceful, angelic in a way only Jeno can pull off, but Jaemin can't shake off the dull smell of alcohol that comes out of his breath, so he wastes no time in turning on the light of his bedside table. He's in a bit of a haze, his mind still wrapping around the image in front of him and running a hundred questions; he wants to know what's happening, how's Jeno, why is he _on his bed_ of all places, but when he's about to stand up he feels a pair of arms circle his waist, pinning him down.

“Don’t,” Jeno whispers, tightly dipping his fingers on Jaemin's hips, “let’s sleep.”

“What the fuck.” This can't be happening. “Jeno, get up, come on.”

Jeno doesn't put up much resistance when letting go of Jaemin's hips; it only takes a gentle pull on his wrists —Jaemin considered going for his hands, but he got scared they would burn— and Jeno is immediately dragging his hands along the sheets, smoothly securing them under the pillow. But when Jaemin tries to lift him up so he can at least put him in a sitting position and get some answers out of him, his only reaction to Jaemin's touch is a soft grunt as he proceeds to bury his hands deeper under the pillow, now hugging it against his body in an aim to attach himself to the mattress.

Given the way his voice had sounded before, somewhere between fond and annoyed, but not hoarse, Jaemin's assumed Jeno's not drunk. Tipsy, yes, definitely. Enough to be fond towards him after a whole week of ignoring him; enough to ask him to _just sleep_, too. (_Together?_ Jaemin wonders). But not drunk. A drunk Jeno is mostly dead weight, and this Jeno is responsive, if only not in the way Jaemin wants him to be. Watching as he breathes evenly, eyes barely closed and holding the pillow close to him, almost inhaling it in, Jaemin thinks he mostly looks tired, terribly so.

Jaemin is tired too, and as he tries and fails to get Jeno to move one last time, poking at his sides half-heartedly and only getting a slight nose scrunch in response, he decides to let himself lay on his side, facing him.

Deep down he knows he'll have to go; maybe to Jeno's room, maybe to the couch, but he'll have to leave this room if Jeno's going to sleep here. Because he's not five anymore, and making Jeno laugh is no longer that easy, and falling asleep next to his best friend means something different when he's desperately yearning for more. Because even though they've slept together countless times, he knows that tomorrow it won't be Jeno's smile greeting him when he opens his eyes; instead, his side of the bed will probably be cold, and Jeno will still be mad. 

So he allows himself a moment, only a moment.

The light is still on, so he bends to the side of the bed, carefully so he won't disturb Jeno, and turns it off. Once he's settled on his side again, he realizes the room is now dipped in silver. 

It's quiet, it's a Sunday night and Seoul is unaware that on the seventh floor of a Gangnam building there's a boy staring at another boy, wishing he could be the moonlight to cradle him in his arms. 

Jaemin traces patterns with his eyes on Jeno's skin, entire canvasses of the places he would like to reach and touch, of all the ways in which he would do so. He starts with his hands, always cold and used to seeking Jaemin's for warmth, like a mountain wearing snow cloaks and reaching for the soft caress of sun rays, and Jaemin can see it in his mind, his own fingers gliding gracefully and nimbly across long, silvery paths and crevices, from the tips of Jeno's lissom fingers to his bony knuckles, making the peaks and the hillsides glisten and melt under his touch. Then he moves on to his arms, following endless and branched streams of ashy blue, veins standing out so much Jaemin likes to think Jeno has more life running through him than the rest of mortals. And that's probably true, since now, being peacefully asleep, he pretty much looks like a god. Beautiful and immortal, like one of those gods from the thousand-year-old myths he would read about as a child, sitting on the carpeted floor of his house's library for hours. 

When Jaemin's eyes finally reach Jeno's face, he doesn't paint a canvas there. He doesn't need to, for Jeno's hard defined features, the marbled line of his jaw, the shape of his closed eyes like waning moons, his eyelashes brushing against his skin like dandelions, and his lips soft and plump like peaches, all of it, all of them, they paint a canvas of its own. Jaemin would write Jeno his own myths if he could.

The moment he had allowed himself is coming to an end, he can feel it in the vertiginous cliff that separates him from Jeno, much shorter than he had thought when his eyes weren't focused on his face, and he grants himself one last miracle before he forces himself to get up.

It's like fresh air blowing into his lungs when he at last reaches out to actually _touch_. It's just a mere brush of his fingers; Jeno's fringe, which at some point must have been slightly pulled up and hanging on one side, has fallen wild on his forehead, so Jaemin removes it, his touch feathery and cautious. 

But Jeno must feel it anyway, because when his gaze lowers he encounters a pair of eyes staring hazily into his. 

He only gets to catch the _gentleness_ in them before they're closing again, softly as if the night was delicate, and Jeno's leaning in. 

There's not much room for him to move closer without touching him, and he can't breathe. 

Jeno kisses him.

Jaemin can't breathe.

Jeno's lips are on his, and he thinks he doesn't need to breathe if he gets to keep them there.

Which, he doesn't.

Jeno's lips are on his one second and gone the next, quick and powerful like a lightning bolt, shooting electricity throughout his body in waves, surely reducing his insides to ashes in the short time it takes for Jeno to go back to his place on the pillow and look at him with heavy lidded eyes that might contain the secrets of the universe.

Or at least of Jeno's universe, which is the only one Jaemin is drawn to anyway. 

"Goodnight," Jeno whispers, the gates to his universe close once again, his breathing getting deeper, and just like that he slips far away.

Jaemin can barely react to any of it.

He doesn't think he's reacted to anything since the moment he saw Jeno's eyes open, not even to the kiss, which had felt so much like lightning. 

Fast, ephemeral, destructive.

And just like when lightning strikes, the kiss is gone but the fire remains. There’s fire on Jaemin’s lips, fire in the form of arms around his waist, fire in his mind, fire in his chest, and there are overwhelming tears threatening to be shed, burning his eyes, a cloud of smoke suffocating his throat.

He wants to stay.

(Jeno_ asked_ him to. He _kissed_ him.)

He needs to get out.

(But what if it was the alcohol talking? Will he hate him in the morning for letting him do that?)

In the end, it's the lack of air what prompts him in one direction. This room feels suffocating, too crowded with questions he's not sure he wants the answer for.

When he finally gets himself to move and get up he feels his heart beating so fast he's actually afraid it might explode. It makes the short trip to the door a living nightmare as he scrambles his way around the bed, and he has to fight the will to look at Jeno one last time as he feels the weight of all the what ifs and maybes pushing him out of the room. 

It must be that same will what takes him to Jeno's room, and there, surrounded by Jeno's things and Jeno's smell, sweet and lingering, he's no longer strong enough to fight it, to go somewhere else. He succumbs instead, climbing onto Jeno's bed.

His heartbeat subsides little by little, but his mind is still reeling. He reaches for his phone on the bedside table to distract himself and then remembers that first, this isn't his room, and second, he was stupid enough to forget to bring his phone. 

_Fuck it, really._

He has no option but to wait. 

Wait, try not to lose his mind, try not to _think_, and wait, and keep waiting.

He closes his eyes.

Jaemin thinks he lies there for hours before the world turns black.

He doesn't notice the exact moment in which he falls asleep, but the feeling of peachy lips lighting embers on his follows him into his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo, how was it? if u like how it's going so far please please let us know in the comments, we need the encouragement *eyes emoji* 
> 
> also if u have any suggestions we're happy to read them!! 
> 
> tw: @hyuckiy @markvhyun


	6. caught up in the crossfire of heaven and hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / drops a new chapter three months later like nothing happened. nomin nation this is for you

“How did kissing Jaemin feel like?” at that, Donghyuck looks up from his phone.

Jeno’s question comes after a long moment of silence, his voice just a bit slurred, half a whisper, but loud enough so that Donghyuck understands what Jeno is asking him. It doesn’t come as a surprise, not really, given that he’s just spent a Sunday afternoon cuddling Jeno between drinks and talking about his friend’s feelings. Jaemin’s name hadn’t been mentioned yet though, mostly because Jeno knows his ways around words and because Donghyuck didn’t want to start a fire, but it was like the sun on a cloudy day, present and invisible at the same time. 

Still burning.

“Good,” he says, faintly remembering Jaemin’s lips on his, soft and warm. “He’s a good kisser.” It's not an easy response for Jeno to take in, he can guess as much, but it is an easy question for him to answer.

The one that comes some time later, though, isn't.

"Are you really okay about meeting Mark again?"

He lets the question resonate inside the room and against every wall of his mind for a while.

Up until hearing the three knocks on his door, it had been a rather uneventful Sunday for Donghyuck, at least as uneventful as they got lately if the TV screen remained black and his social media quiet. But even so, on such a dull day and as the remaining shades of pink disappeared from the sky as the night took over, his mind had been running around one single phone call. After all, there are two things he can't avoid even if he wants to, and one of them is his mother; the other, his own thoughts, and today they wouldn't shut up. 

(_Your father wants to talk to you, Donghyuck_, his mother had said over the phone.

_Why do you even care what he wants?_)

Because every day there's a sort of anger inside of him that he doesn't know what to do with; anger at his father, for destroying their family; anger at his mother, for not seeming as angry as he is; anger at himself, for feeling weak and _wrong_. 

And then there's Mark, who for over two years has been a needle on his tongue, who should make him as angry as everything else, and who suddenly doesn't. For whatever reason. 

So is he okay about meeting Mark again?

Jeno had been as open and sincere about his feelings for Jaemin as he could allow himself to be, Donghyuck knows that, and sometimes the thing about sincerity is that it demands to be given back.

"I don't know," he says, at last, and the next words leave his mouth before he can catch up to them, "I think I'm fucking terrified, Jen."

The look on Jeno's eyes shifts, understanding shining through them like a lighthouse, and it's the only thing he needs to realize that what he's said is true.

If he steps into Mark Lee's world again, now of all times, then he has no damn clue where that'll take him.

vi.

♖

Renjun doesn’t remember a time when walking into his own house didn’t feel like stepping over thin ice.

It is what it is; no matter which season, coming to his parent’s house in Seoul always feels like winter, he thinks, as the automatic door closes behind his back and he walks down the short path from the main entrance to the front door. The grass that usually frames the white marble tiles is now covered by a thick layer of frost, too white, too gently placed, evenly scattered between the square shapes.

The first snowfall.

Like an act not made to be seen until daylight, it came quietly and slyly, a thick white cloak burying the last remnants of fall in the dim of the night, away from sight.

Renjun did see it, though. As his brain grew tired of collecting information for his global finances' final, he had been an eyewitness to the first signs of snow some time before sunrise. It was the window behind his desk that had allowed him to see it, channeling both the view of the city and his own reflection, dimly lit by the lamp. _Those eyebags don’t suit you either_, Donghyuck had said weeks ago, and Renjun had remembered his friend’s words last night when he saw them reflected in the crystal clear glass, books and notes forgotten for a split moment and snowflakes falling beautifully and slowly behind the glass, a strike white contrast to Renjun’s shadows under his eyes.

The pills may not be a decision he's proud of, but they're at least making the shadows go away.

_They're at least helping me keep up with both my parents' wishes and mine_, Renjun thinks as he presses the doorbell. He hears the footsteps, and for a moment he has to remind himself that he came today on his own will, just like he left on his own will too three years ago. His mother had celebrated that Renjun asked to rent a place near his campus and made some arrangements almost immediately, if only just because she thought Renjun was making that decision based on efficiency, that he would naturally want a place near his classes, his professors, and the library. Even when Chenle'd moved in with him the next year his mother only allowed it because Renjun promised her that it wouldn't have any impact on the results he was obtaining.

In economics, of course. 

“Hi, love.” His mother smiles when he opens the door. Renjun swears the air gets colder.

“Hi, mom.” 

His parents couldn't care less about his art degree, they're only paying his tuition because Renjun refused to do economics if they didn't let him major in art too. The first year of college they tried to persuade him into quitting art every time he came home to visit, and although the number of times they try to have that talk with him has decreased significantly in the last two years —all thanks to Renjun's economics grades— they still dare to approach the topic sometimes.

Renjun hopes, as he observes the grey sky and the dark clouds coming together in the horizon before stepping in, that today isn’t one of those days. 

That’s all he can do about it.

“You should have told us you were coming. Your father won’t be here for the rest of the evening.” Growing up, Renjun's father was never present for tea time. It was always Renjun and his mother, and the impending silence that prowled around them like an uninvited host, at first hidden behind the solid veils of childish innocence, but growing heavier and thicker over their shoulders as Renjun got older.

It's the kind of silence that grows like a parasite, inserting itself little by little in all of those places that should be filled with all the important words but aren't.

Small talk and idle conversation have always been the easy way-out in the Huang household, almost like a habit, and as everyone knows, habits can be hard to quit.

Maybe that's why today it was only silly questions and empty words what had followed him and his mother around since the moment he went through the door and as they made their way to the sitting room, waiting for the housekeeper to make them some tea. 

Maybe that's why when Renjun takes a sip from his cup before answering, he can still feel the silence wandering furtively at the edges of their words. 

“It’s okay," he says, "I just wanted to pass by and say hi. It’s been two weeks.” _Two weeks_, he repeats in his mind. Two weeks since he last came to see his parents, and they still got nothing to say. 

He's almost tempted to wonder why he's even here, but then remembers that this impromptu and sudden visit was fueled by a sense of longing he wishes he didn’t feel. And it's a tricky feeling, see, because Renjun loves it: it keeps him grounded, gives him some place to return to even though it’s not of his liking. But Renjun hates it too, for the exact same reason.

“That’s so sweet, love. But next time please, at least call me beforehand." His mother's voice sounds gentle, but Renjun catches the way she subconsciously smoothes out the fabric of her skirt as she speaks, and only then does he take notice of the clothes she's wearing, of the thin layer of makeup on her skin. His mother has always been an elegant woman, but Renjun can easily recognise when she's dressing up to go out. It's suddenly evident, and so is the impatience that lies on her voice underneath the calm expression and warm tone. 

Still, he only gets to mutter a quick _yes, mom, sorry_, before she continues, “I forgot to ask you last time you were here. You’re still friends with the Lee kid, right?” 

“Donghyuck,” he corrects. He doesn't say _you know him since we were kids_ or _I've told you his name a thousand times already_. He doesn't say _my friends are more than their families' names, you know_ either. He swallows it instead, the same way he swallows the pills. “And yes, why?” 

“That poor boy," she sighs, ignoring his question. "I can’t imagine what he’s going through. His family is being dragged all over the news.” 

If his mother were a different person, he could maybe take her words as actual concern, and he would tell her that yes, Donghyuck is not doing so well, that he's not acting a lot like himself lately, that his mood is all over the place and that Renjun is worried. And he would, because if his mother were a different person maybe that would mean that they are able to talk, and that he doesn't hear the buzzing sound of silence swallowing them and that everything his mother says comes without a hidden agenda. 

But she's not, and he can't. 

And the only reason why she's bringing up Donghyuck at all is because that way she can avoid saying things like _I'm disappointed in you_ and he has to bite back things like _I'm overwhelmed about life right now._

“I know," he says in the end, curtly and simple because he knows that his mother doesn't care about details. 

His cup is almost empty now, it feels cold in his hand, and as he watches his mother lower down hers after taking the last sip, he catches the sharp glint in her gaze.

When she opens her mouth, Renjun is already expecting the sting. 

"Be careful around him, alright?” 

“What does that mean?" he tries, although he knows exactly what she means.

The hidden agenda, of course.

“You know how the media is," she starts, "your friend hasn’t hit the news yet, but I’m sure they’re dying to throw him in the mud with his parents. I think it would be good to… keep your distance, at least until the trial’s over.” 

The trial is in two months, Donghyuck had said, his voice quiet and sadness written all over his face. That night, he didn’t need to crash at his and Chenle’s apartment, Donghyuck has a place of his own, closer to main events of the city; he has his own bed, bigger, probably with softer sheets. That night he had asked to be treated with care, and Renjun knew that behind the high-pitched voice and the fake pouts Donghyuck had come to him because he desperately needed someone; that’s how Donghyuck is, how Donghyuck has always been, he needs people around him and, even though maybe he won’t ever admit it, he wants to receive the same amount of affection that he gives.

Renjun can’t take that away from him. He doesn’t want to.

“I’m not going to–” he starts, but the sound of his phone cuts his words and startles his mother. It’s a message from Jisung, asking him to meet. Renjun takes a deep breath, counts to ten, finishes his drink and immediately gets up. It’s sudden, but his mother doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t even ask, because she doesn’t care, and Renjun has learned to take advantage of that. “I have to go.” 

“Oh well, that’s too bad, love.” If his mother notices how Renjun flinches at the nickname, she doesn’t say anything. “I wish we could have talked more.”

Lies, white as the snow outside.

Renjun does give her a smile, pretending he’s sorry, just as she is pretending that she wants him to stay and talk. And then, just as he's about to close the door behind him, he turns around, facing the slightly disrupted face of his mother once more. 

(Because her words are itching under his skin and because his parents might have always had the final say in a great portion of his life and maybe always will, but his friends have always been _his_. His to deal with, his to support, his to protect and choose.

His own brush-strokes on someone else's canvas.)

"You know, mom, _you_ might, but I don't care at all if people associate me with one of my closest friends." 

When he steps out of the house, he feels a change of season; the cold air wrapping around him like a soft mantle, and the real, grueling winter disappearing behind the locked door.

♖

Donghyuck hasn't really changed in the last couple of years, at least not physically. His hair is still carefully dyed a honey brown, wavy and looking golden under the sunlight, and he seems to always maintain it at the same length, with his fringe barely covering his eyebrows. He’s grown into his features and yet his face remains the same, perfect shape to be cupped before a kiss, his cheeks full and soft, so not like Mark’s.

His eyes, though. 

His eyes are very different.

It's not the first time Mark notices it. Mark has seen Donghyuck's eyes change before, back in that summer full of laughter behind sea waves and kisses between laughter; when their only summer and all its could have beens had ended one afternoon with a cold glare and no warning. But Mark hadn't questioned it then, and even though the way Donghyuck looked at him had frozen, his eyes still glimmered with the same familiar light when Mark's gaze followed him around the room.

That's not the case now.

Mark's seen Donghyuck more than a couple of times throughout the year, both of them ending up in the same party or pub every now and then, their worlds mingling because Mark hangs out with Jaehyun and Jaehyun is, for better or for worse, Jaemin's cousin. But even though his gaze unconsciously trails back to Donghyuck in every meeting, it wasn't until recently that he noticed it. 

The pain in Donghyuck's eyes back in the hallway of his apartment complex.

The flimsy glint in his gaze despite the little light bulbs all over the café.

It made Mark's heart ache, the feeling very similar to the one that he's going through right now as he observes Donghyuck's face on his phone screen, naver article already opened. The words are not about him; they're about his parents, about one of south korea's most popular and sad love stories, a bittersweet ending to a couple that once found love on and off screen, but the article briefly mentions Donghyuck. It's nothing but a short commentary about how he's kept a low profile from the public eye all these years despite most people's expectations, attached to a single photo of him and his mother in her last movie's premiere back in january; almost a year ago, Mark thinks, and still the pain is there. 

Different shape, but present nevertheless. 

Mark's not sure why it's so hard to look at, so hard to realize that Donghyuck has been burning out for so long, but he supposes that it makes sense.

He had seen those eyes shine so, so bright, almost blinding, that it hurts to see that light almost gone. Even worse, it hurts not to know what caused that.

“Didn't take you for the gossiping type.” A strangled noise leaves Mark's mouth as he almost throws his phone away in a desperate attempt to cover his actions, his eyes finally abandoning Donghyuck’s picture on the screen and landing on Taeyong’s face. There’ a scowl on his friend’s face that gets even more accentuated by the white sickening lights of the store, and Mark can feel the beginning of a headache.

“I'm not– this was just—" he pauses, sighs. "I know everything Dispatch says is bullshit," Mark says, and it’s the truth. He's far from being the most pop culture savvy these days —that’s Chenle— but he’s aware of how shitty some medias can be. That's not to say he wants to discuss it with Taeyong, though. Or anyone for that matter. "What are you doing here?” 

There's a couple of seconds in which Taeyong observes him, doing a quick once-over of his expression and the situation before deciding to take up his cue on the change of subject. 

Mark deeply appreciates it.

"You told Johnny you were only going to fill in some shifts during weekends. It's 3 a.m on a tuesday, and you're having finals these days, Mark, the question is what are you doing here?" 

Mark huffs at the question. 

Taeyong knows damn well the answer.

"We need the money." 

"Things are not as bad as before, Mark." 

The sound of high heels against the cold tiles of the shop stop Mark from starting with Taeyong the same conversation he's had with Johnny countless times. He stays silent, and so does Taeyong, as the two girls who just entered the shop keep walking through the corridors discussing fervently what they should buy.

Even so the unsaid words burn Mark's throat. Things are not as bad as before, sure, but for how long? Johnny's tired of hearing that question and Mark is tired of asking it. They can afford to pay for their mother’s treatment now, but there are also the monthly payments for the loan their family took in the first place. What if his mother has a relapse, what if his father gets sick too, what if Johnny’s business doesn’t always go well? 

“We can also have a karaoke session if you want,” one of the girls says to her friend as they both approach Mark and Taeyong at the counter. Mark scans the wine bottles, thinking that he wouldn’t mind having a glass right now. He keeps his head down, eyes lingering over the black surface of the counter the whole time, even as the girls pay, and also after they’re gone. When the door closes he hears how Taeyong lets out a deep sigh.

It’s not as bad as before.

It’s not, that’s true. The present times can’t be compared to how things were two summers ago, when Mark didn’t know if his mother would still be alive at the end of the day, or if they would have a roof over their heads once everything was said and done. Two summers ago, when he was anxious all the time, when he could barely laugh, the only time Mark remembers feeling hatred. Two summers ago, when Donghyuck shone the brightest, when the time wasn’t just right, when Mark couldn’t feel the warm sun rays and instead got burned.

But that's not the trail of thought he wants to follow, so he shakes his head, watches as Taeyong grabs his coat from the hanger, resignation settling in his bones. 

“How did you know I was here?" 

"You told Yukhei." A hand settles on his shoulder, squeezing, and Mark knows that's Taeyong's way of saying, "_don't worry too much._" "Your shift ends in fifteen minutes, right? I'll take you home." 

Only two more people enter the shop in the time left, and the minutes feel a lot shorter with Taeyong rambling about some of his new compositions and making subtle beats out of tapping on the counter. 

He doesn't bring up the money subject again, maybe because Taeyong always knows enough, understands what others don't say. Instead his voice is soothing, his presence calming the same way that nights spent in his basement back in Vancouver felt quiet and peaceful when he and Johnny could just listen to music and talk till the sun came out. 

Maybe Taeyong reminds Johnny of home too.

"Did Johnny set you up for this?" Mark teases some time later, taking his coat from Taeyong's hand as they head outside into the cold.

His friend laughs, but Mark gains a little kick on his leg.

"You're overestimating how much power your brother has over me, Markie."

By the time they are getting on Taeyong's motorcycle, the smile on Mark's face feels easy, none of the previous thoughts sneaking in to tamper with it, even if they're never quite gone. As they wander down one street and the next, there's a different thought making its way into his head, a tiny voice that sounds both like his own and Johnny's and that may be the reason why his brother is so confident that things are not as bad as before, that they won't _get_ as bad.

It feels a little like Taeyong's squeeze on his shoulder too.

_(We're not alone anymore.) _

♖

When Jeno had first mentioned his desire to try boxing, he didn't miss the incredulity that painted all of his friends' faces.

He could understand their way of thinking, why they would feel that a person like him, kind, composed, strong, wasn't fit for a sport so violent, so raw.

But what his friends didn't know was that, while he might be all of those things, kind, composed, and to some extent, strong, there were things brewing inside of him, hot and scalding, that could only be pushed out of him by the fire in his arms and the burn in his hands every time he forcefully stabbed his hands into the punching bag, all of his thoughts and worries and sometimes rage molding into one blow, into getting the right technique, and the freedom that came along with every tired breath. The same freedom he never felt at home with his parents, or even lately in the pressing air of his own apartment, of Jaemin's presence always hanging around the borders.

Like today. 

It’s not the fact that Jeno woke up in the morning on Jaemin’s bed, wrapped in a familiar vanilla scent but alone, the icy winter light painting the room white. Although for all the times Jeno has met the sun on Jaemin’s bed before, some of them with arms around his waist and Jaemin's body pressed against his, he has to admit that the contrast felt like needles sticking all the way down to his spine.

It’s not the fact that he kissed Jaemin last night either, the memory hazy, blurry, but a memory nevertheless. It wasn’t a product of his imagination, nor a reminiscence of a dream, even though Jeno was on the edge of reality when it happened, sleep claiming his consciousness like a soft lullaby.

It was a product of five words, a consequence of his own question.

"He's a good kisser," Donghyuck had said, wrecking with that months and months of late night thoughts that couldn't be revisited in the daylight, of the yearning in his chest every time Jaemin was around, and he didn't regret it; not when it happened, not in the morning, not even now does he deem it a mistake, even if it was a little cocktail of pent-up feelings and a tiny amount of alcohol. If anything, after his friend's words, it had felt both like too much and too little; a simple brush of lips that couldn't rival the image of nameless faces meeting Jaemin's mouth in the middle of a breath, but that was soothing in the way Jaemin's gaze had looked soft when Jeno had opened his eyes and found him looking at him. At him, not Donghyuck; him, not another stupid boy at Yukhei's party. 

Too much and too little. 

Soothing and exhausting, so much so that his eyes had closed and morning had found him in the desperate need of air.

In the desperate need of _this_. The hurting at the back of his bare hand when he hits the punching bag with all his might one last time.

In the end, it's the fact that they're both running away. And as he finds out a moment later, as hot water dribbles down his spine and burns his sore knuckles, it's the fact that he's done running, for better or for worse. 

There's a bundle of thoughts taking shape in his mind when he steps out of the shower into the locker room, a mess of words and feelings that he's been carrying for months, maybe longer, and the choice to face them. Face him. 

He can see the road ahead of him, but he's not running anymore. And he forgets that when you stop running, the thing you're running away from finds a way of catching you.

The room is empty save for one figure lying against his locker, hazel hair disheveled and light blue patches underneath his eyes and still looking way too elegant and beautiful for the white lighting and red walls. 

When their eyes meet, it's like facing himself.

"I figured you'd be here," Jaemin says, but Jeno hears something different.

_I'm done running too._

-

Jaemin blurts out the words like they were stopping him from breathing.

“God, this isn’t like us.” He knows Jeno’s eyes are on him as soon as he’s done talking, but he decides not to look back, his glance focused on the snow covering the ground. It’s freezing, and his jacket isn’t warm enough.

Usually, Jeno would walk closer. 

“What do you mean?” 

“This. Us,” _everything that’s happened in the last few weeks_, Jaemin doesn’t say, because Jeno must now, it’s impossible that he doesn’t. They’re not the same, they’re far away from what they used to be, and Jaemin knows they probably won’t be the same either after this conversation, whatever directions it takes, but now it’s like they’re nothing —caught up in between, not enemies, not just friends— and Jaemin can feel it is destroying both of them. “Walking together in complete silence, not even looking at each other. It’s so fucking awkward. How did we even end up like this?”

“Jaemin.” Jeno’s voice sounds like he’s trying to draw a line amidst them. Jaemin almost laughs before stepping over it.

“No, listen," he begins, slowing down his steps. Not once did he picture having this conversation in the middle of the sidewalk, but now that they're here it feels like they're running on borrowed time till they get to the apartment. Like it's now or never. "I’m worried about you. You haven’t been taking care of yourself in the past few months, and now you won’t even let me take care of you. I already told you I’m sorry, Jeno, I truly am. How many times do you need me to say it?”

This is the moment, Jaemin thinks. 

This is the moment where they always get stuck.

He apologizes, and it's never enough. 

Except this time Jeno's eyes are on his, and there's only a breath of hesitation before the words are jumping out of his mouth.

"That’s not it." 

"Then what?" he responds, quickly and eager not to let this chance go. "See, this is what I meant by this isn’t us. Jeno, we’ve been friends since we were kids. We’ve always told each other everything, good things, bad things, there were no secrets between us, or at least that’s what I thought." 

(They even made a promise about it once, he remembers. Half a lifetime ago when there were two boys, one bicycle and one hoodie, and countless afternoon rides to han river. When one of the boys lost that hoodie and they went two days without talking for he didn't know how to tell the other, and when that was the biggest thing that could ever happen.

Not to ever lie to each other, not to ever keep a secret from each other, they said, once Jeno went knocking on Jaemin's door with an apology hanging at the edge of his lips.

But Jaemin doesn't remind him of that. After all, he probably broke that promise first when he fell in love with Jeno all those years ago.) 

"Some things are just not easy to say, okay?" Jeno sighs. "And you know me, I’m not good at… this, at sharing, even if it’s with you. I get, I don’t know, anxious, or scared, and then I think that maybe some things are better left unsaid, like it might make everything easier." 

"Make what easier?"

There isn't a pause before Jeno says his next words, but to Jaemin, it feels like there is, like there should be. Like there are things too big to be bared out in the open in one go, with no preface nor prologue.

With no chance for him to catch his breath before the whirlwind.

"Liking you." 

Time stills, or maybe it's the snowflake that falls between them that freezes it. 

“That's- what?” 

“I've been trying to tell myself that I don't, Jaemin, for so, so long. I thought, 'if I don't say it out loud then it won't be true'...” 

_That’s not how things work,_ Jaemin wants to say, but he doesn’t, because it’s pointless, they both know. Keeping a feeling to yourself doesn’t make it disappear and it’ll only leave you helpless against the fire it creates, and no matter how you try to deal with it, whether it’s numbing your feelings with alcohol or hiding behind meaningless touches, the flames get to you sooner or later. Maybe on a Saturday morning, maybe on a Sunday night.

And it burns, it hurts.

That is, until you realize it doesn’t have to be like that.

_Oh,_ Jaemin thinks, have they always been this fool? 

"...but you were always _there_, you know?" Jeno is saying, but Jaemin's thoughts are starting to melt into one another, evolving, shifting. "It was driving me crazy and…"

The cold is burning the words as they leave Jeno's mouth, far too fast for Jaemin to get a hold of them and far too fast for them to be—

"Stop," he hears himself say. "Stop, Jeno." _Far too fast for them to be real_, his mind completes. 

Except they are.

"Oh god."

He needs a moment. If this is _that_ moment, the _maybe_ he's been wishing for, he needs to get a grip on it, he needs to get it away from the frenzied rhythm of the people around them and the street noise, without the weight of their own steps against the sidewalk and the snowflakes making it all feel slippery, like a song on fast forward.

“Come here,” he says abruptly, tainting the confusion on Jeno's face with a glint of surprise, grabbing his hand the same way he’s grabbed it since they were no older than five, and the fact that Jeno doesn’t let go is both a torture and a relief. 

He guides Jeno through a narrow street between two buildings, the short walk ending up in a small park that’s empty now because of the weather. Jaemin makes them take shelter under the slide, snow falling all around them like a cascade, a frozen veil. 

"Okay." The only warm spot around is in Jeno's eyes, and Jaemin makes sure to stare right into them as he gathers his thoughts and starts, "Just when— for how _long_, Jeno?” 

Jeno swallows. Still, he doesn’t let go of Jaemin’s hand.

“Since we moved in, I guess. At least that's when I started... noticing.”

Since they moved in, meaning six months ago, during summer, just around the time many things started changing. Jeno, for instance. But Jaemin too. 

It was a heated summer, after all, and moving in with the person you want most in the world can burn you from the inside at a much faster pace than he had endured for years, fast enough that you start seeking relief anywhere; any boy at a party, any bed at night.

Jaemin's eyes widen when he feels a realization start kicking in. 

”Come on, Jaemin. Is it that hard to believe? I kissed you last night. Why did you think I did that?”

(The realization that Jeno was burning too, he just found a different way to bear the fire.)

Jaemin has been stupidly blind, and seeing the way Jeno is looking at him now, all rawness and honesty without even flickering, vulnerable in a way Jaemin never dared to be, he realizes he's been a hell of a lot more coward too. 

"I don't know. You had been drinking, Jeno," he says, sighing as if that explains everything. It sort of does, if Jeno's squeeze on his hand and the way he swallows is anything to go by. "I didn't know what to think, I didn't know if you meant it.” 

"Is that why you left?" 

"It's… yeah. I just, I didn't know if you'd be mad at me today."

Confusion washes over Jeno's face.

"Mad? Why would I be mad?" 

"Because I didn't stop you," he hears himself say, words coming out hastily and a little breathless, as if they'd been waiting to be voiced out for hours, and they sort of had.

Jeno must sense it, because his breath meets the icy air in an exhale, a cloud of fog appears and fades between them, and he too sounds a little breathless when he asks, "So why didn't you?" 

_Now, Jaemin._

"You caught me off guard, Jeno. And also," he pauses, eyes lost in the last trace of fog revealing a pair of peachy lips, and he's still a coward but he's also still in love, and Jeno kissed him last night. He looks up, finally ready to imprint his next words into Jeno's irises, "I wanted you to. _I have_ wanted you to. For quite some time. I just never thought it was actually possible." 

Jaemin stares as the sun comes out, not in the sky, but in Jeno’s eyes, when he understand what Jaemin has not said directly. He thinks that Jeno looks beautiful like this, with snow falling around him and the promise of love in the air, with his heart open and his fears melting away, a impossible warmth blooming between the two of them in the middle of winter, that’s exactly when Jeno looks best.

Jeno parts his lips to say something, but he stops midway and, somehow, decides that cupping Jaemin’s face softly is a much better idea. They both know they have a lot left to talk about, but those words don’t belong to this moment, no, this moment belongs to Jeno’s hands gracefully placed under Jaemin’s chin, the tip of his thumb softly pressing on the corner of his lips, and the warm touch of his mouth against his a second later.

This time it's not a lightning bolt. It feels just like Jeno's lips against his should feel like, liquid, warm, soft, the quiet flow of the lake that his parents used to take him to every summer.

Home. 

It also feels like a beginning.

“Now this is more like us, right?” Jeno smiles, winter fades.

Jaemin feels like spring.

“This is better.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we promise it's not going to take us three months again to update ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧ we hope yall enjoyed this chapter!


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